Harry Potter and the Marauder's Blessing
by DisobedienceWriter
Summary: Follows HPB. A humorous 7th Year story as Harry takes creative, welldeserved revenge on Umbridge, Cornelius Fudge, Wormtail, Bellatrix, Snape, Malfoy, and Voldemort. Reviews appreciated.
1. Harry Unchained

Harry Unchained

Harry Potter opened the door to his aunt and uncle's home at Number Four, Privet Drive. His long dark hair flopped around as if he hadn't bothered to comb it in weeks. In truth, he'd run a comb through it five minutes earlier. His hair never did behave itself.

"Mione," he said to his bushy haired friend, Hermione Granger, "please step right in." Harry smiled at his friend Ronald Weasley who was standing behind Hermione. "Ron, you're on time."

Harry looked happy. His face showed none of the cares that the Boy-Who-Lived should be showing right about now. He was a day from his seventeenth birthday, from assuming his majority in the wizarding world. He was also one day from setting off on his quest to avenge the death of his father, mother, his friend Cedric, his godfather Sirius, and his former mentor Albus Dumbledore. Harry Potter was nearing his final confrontation with Tom Riddle, the dark wizard calling himself Lord Voldemort. He rather looked like he'd just boiled his relatives, the Dursleys, in a large cauldron.

Ron and Hermione couldn't bring themselves to step into the house.

"Mate?" Ron said.

They were both expecting the resolute, determined Harry they'd left at the end of Albus Dumbledore's funeral.

"More Polyjuice," Hermione said to herself, not quite under her breath. She had brewed the concoction herself during their second year at Hogwarts, the school for wizards and witches. Then they'd been subjected to its use against them: a Death Eater had masqueraded for a full year as one of their teachers and last year Draco Malfoy had convinced his goons to stand as lookouts while under its influence. No one needed Polyjuice any more.

Harry threw the door open wider. "It's really me," he said. "No more Polyjuice. I'll explain everything, but not on the front stoop."

Ron was the first to walk inside. But he stopped only three steps in. Hermione bumped into his back.

"Harry, this place looks different," Ron said.

If any of his friends would know, it was Ron. He and his brothers had broken Harry out of a makeshift prison created by the Dursleys in the summer before his second year at Hogwarts. He'd seen just a touch of the home then.

Hermione let out a gasp when she surveyed the room she was seeing.

"Harry?"

"Hmm," he said with a dreamy calm.

"Why is every flat surface in this house covered in books," she asked.

Harry shut the opened door to the outside world. He turned around and gave a quick turn of his head to the room.

"And why haven't your aunt and uncle done anything about it, mate?" Ron asked. "You said they were neat freaks."

"Hmm," Harry said. "I guess I should have told you I got a library card."

Hermione, with two Muggle dentists for parents, couldn't see how any library would let Harry take this many books out. Ron, whose father loved and misunderstood Muggle inventions of every kind, was just confused.

"No library would let you take out this many books," she said, stepping over to one precarious pile. "History of the American Revolutionary War, a biography of Winston Churchill…"

"We will never surrender," Harry muttered in a thick, low pitched growl. He still had the smile plastered over his thin, pale face.

Hermione was thoroughly into the towering precipices of books. "…Contemporary Issues with Islamic Terror Groups, Guerilla Warfare Tactics. Muggle movies, stacks of them. And these are books of Muggle fairy tales, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel…"

"Baking a witch in the oven," Harry muttered.

"Gruesome," Ron said, catching every word. Harry liked that his friend was so excitable.

Harry reached out and pulled Hermione away from the stack of books. "Come and take a seat. The parlor is just over here," he said.

When Harry led them to the sofa, Ron let out his second gasp of the evening.

"What're you lot doing here," he almost shouted out to his older twin brothers, George and Fred Weasley. They were leaning against the far wall of the room.

"Well," George said, "we've been coming…"

"…to see poor Harry here since the summer started," Fred continued. It was like a convention of red heads had come into the house. Their wild hair color clashed against the very normal, thank you very much, colors of the sofa and furnishings in the room.

"And you didn't tell me," Ron almost shouted. "He's my friend and mom wouldn't even let me owl him a short note. 'He's in mourning,' she said."

The twins smirked and shrugged their shoulders.

"Ron, I asked them here," Harry said. "They've been a great help so far."

Ron went into an instant sulk and then came out of it. He had always been wired a little tight.

Harry walked over to a thin stack of paper that was lying in between columns of books. He plucked it up and then nodded at the twins. They conjured up a pair of chairs and then levitated them near the sofa. Neither had spoken a single spell.

"I think we're almost ready," Harry said.

"We came to help you pack," Hermione said. "And to help you," Ron added. "We're going to the Burrow tomorrow."

"Before the blood protection ends," Hermione added, "on the house, you know, because of you living here with your aunt." Albus Dumbledore had long posited that it was an old form of magic, blood magic, that kept Harry safe as long as he spent at least some part of the year with his last living relatives. It would end after he reached his seventeenth birthday.

Harry sat down on the very proper and middle class coffee table the Dursleys had purchased less than a year ago. It was one of the only flat surfaces in the room.

"We're not going to the Burrow," Harry said. "Except for the day of Bill," who was Ron's oldest brother, "and Fleur's wedding. We have too much to do. That is, if you want to help."

This wasn't a Harry either of them had seen before. Serious and bemused, content while living under his aunt and uncle's roof.

"Where are the Muggles," Ron asked.

"They're around," Harry said.

"Are they alive," Hermione asked. "You look far too happy, Harry."

The Chosen One just laughed. He hadn't done much of that since the day his godfather died, since the day he had been told the full terms of the prophecy cast months before he'd even been born. Serious Harry wasn't sitting in front of them.

"They're all just fine," Harry said, his voice almost squeaking in happiness.

Ron looked at him. "You're not allowed to do magic yet, Harry," he said. He almost sounded like Hermione when the words came out of his mouth.

"That's right," George said, breaking the intense stare between Ron and Harry. The younger brother looked over to the new speaker. George and Fred looked positively gleeful.

"Harry can't," Fred said. "But we can. We followed him back after he got off the train. Had a right row going with the Muggles."

"Then we took things in hand," George said. "We're known for our excellent charms, but we're also pretty darn good at transfiguration."

Fred laughed.

Ron's eyes widened almost to the point of overwhelming his own face. Hermione bit back a laugh and then became serious again. "That's Muggle baiting," she said.

Harry shrugged.

"They graciously allowed us the use of their home as a temporary headquarters," Harry said. "You can thank them later, if you want. I'll introduce you."

"Headquarters," Ron interrupted.

Harry nodded. "Welcome to the headquarters of the Committee of Marauders."

Ron and Hermione both knew the history of the original Marauders, four Gryffindor friends who had pulled some of the greatest pranks of all time at Hogwarts.

"I'm totally confused," Hermione said. "It looks like a library got nicked and you brought it here."

"Planning," Harry said.

"Research and development," George said.

"Are they in this with you," Ron asked, eyeing his older brothers.

Harry nodded. "Let me start from the beginning?"

Hermione snorted out her relief. "Yes, please."

Ron nodded. "I was beginning to think you'd gone mental, Harry."

Harry leaned forward. "Perhaps I have, Ron. Let's see what you think when I'm done." Harry's eyes twinkled in the afternoon light and the smile never left his face.

"I guess you expected to see me a bit different, huh?" Neither responded. It was a rhetorical question. "Blaming myself again like I did for Sirius' death, for Cedric. Well, I did, for the first week. I thought, if only Dumbledore hadn't stunned me. If only he'd let me help him. If only I'd been more forceful warning him about Snape and Malfoy. But then I realized I was living in the past. I will always treasure Sirius, my parents, Dumbledore. But I had the target on the wrong person."

"Voldemort," Hermione said.

"And the Death Eaters," Harry added. "They've been doing their work in various forms for nearly fifty years and I'm not even seventeen. They've had spies on us, like the fake Moody in our fourth year. They've used the Ministry of Magic against us and the Daily Prophet. They've had people thinking me unstable, a liar, unworthy of being believed. They've got better spies than we do – they had Snape all this time. They've got money, tons of it, and influence about everywhere. They don't care about using the Unforgivables."

Hermione's hand shot out.

"No," Harry said, stopping her, "I don't envy them that advantage. I don't think anyone should copy them in that. But they do plan ahead. They know what they want and they use every resource they have available. I rely on luck and a little bit of skill. I was an infant the first time I faced him; my mother's protections saved me. Eleven the next time I faced him and the same protections saved me again. At twelve, I killed the memory Tom Riddle through luck and Fawkes, the biggest deus ex machine ever conceived, dropping me the sword of Gryffindor. At fourteen, my wand, brother to Voldemort's, caused a malfunction in his killing magic, giving me time to escape. At fifteen, Sirius had to die and Dumbledore had to appear to save us all from my stupidly falling for Voldemort's implanted lies, his using our mental connection against me. Then just a few weeks ago, Dumbledore sacrificed himself, while I watched, helpless as a child, as Malfoy and Snape disarmed and killed him. Their plans don't always work, but they work far too often."

The equanimity was still present on Harry's face, but his voice was thick with barely restrained anger.

"So, our side has luck. We respond fast and we bring Gryffindor courage to the battle. But they have overwhelming hatred to offset their small numbers. They love the Dark Arts and have persuaded giants and werewolves to help them. They use Inferi and other dark machinations. They'll not worry about stealing our better ideas to suit themselves. Malfoy even stole the idea of the enchanted coin so he could control Rosmerta; he stole Hermione's idea from the DA. They're good, but evil. They'll never stop."

Harry dropped a few sheets of paper to the floor.

"I spent days and days thinking about why we keep losing. The Order of the Phoenix has some great witches and wizards in it. Powerful, creative. But they always lay around waiting for something to happen. That inactivity might have helped drive Sirius a but insane our fifth year. Nothing happened. They kept most of their Aurors on guard duty for me the last couple of summers. We've been wasting resources, just passively reacting whenever something happens."

Ron tried to interrupt. "But they saved Hogwarts. They saved us in the Ministery."

Harry nodded. "They saved us from what the Death Eaters planned out. From their plots. But where are our plots? Why hasn't the Order of the Phoenix ever worked against them directly, proactively?"

"Dumbledore didn't let us in on what he knew," Hermione said.

Harry nodded and looked over to the twins. They seemed to have heard this sales pitch before.

"Dumbledore was focused on the big picture, the very end goal," Harry said. "He was a visionary, a powerful wizard, but he wasn't a leader."

Ron looked like he'd just been strangled.

"Don't take that the wrong way," Harry said. "I loved him like a grandfather, but I can see his faults for what they are. He said it himself, he was a brilliant man and his miscalculations were correspondingly enormous. No. Someone like Moody or Remus should have been in charge of the tactics. But all Dumbledore wanted was more information." Harry's voice turned cold here. "Information from Snape." His placid face and his dark voice made for a startling combination.

"Dumbledore was right and wrong about a lot of things. For one, he said there was a magic that Riddle knew not. He kept telling me it was my ability to love. My love for my friends, for my dead parents. Compassion, caring, all that. I'm willing to give him that. But that isn't all of it. I can laugh, I can enjoy the world even when I'm facing the effects of this prophecy. I should hate my Muggle roots as much as Voldemort did, but I don't. I am willing to embrace them."

"Laughter and Muggles are going to take down the Death Eaters?" Ron asked.

Harry smiled. "Something like that."

Hermione had been quiet longer than Harry thought possible. "Who are you, Harry? You sound like you're channeling a Slytherin right now."

Harry's laughter filled the house. "I never mentioned it, Hermione, but the Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin. I finally acknowledged I needed to borrow some cunning."

"And these books," Hermione said. "Where are the wizarding books? The spells and jinxes you need to learn?"

"Everything in a book, Hermione, in a wizarding book, they already know. They've had years to practice them, to learn the counters. All the tactics we've used up until now have failed us. It's time for something a bit newer. We have to use the avenues that they would never think to use, never deign to touch. Muggles are below them, hated. Fine, we'll use Muggle ideas. House elves are worthy of beatings, fine. We'll work with the house elves, we'll work with any magical creature that the Death Eaters scowl at. They're so hopped up on hatred and pain that they would never think of a Rictusempra being a deadly weapon. But it could be."

Ron was shaking his head. Harry just smiled more broadly and turned to the twins. "Could you fetch us some drinks, boys?"

George started to laugh. "Right away, sir…"

"…Mr. Harry Potter, sir," Fred finished. They sounded like a tall pair of house elves.

As they left the room, Harry leaned forward. "They've never forgiven themselves that Draco used their Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder when the Death Eaters stormed Hogwarts. They're as committed to this as I am."

Hermione turned to look at where the twins had disappeared to. In just a second, the smiling young men carried a tray back into the room. There were two plain glasses filled with water and three of the ugliest tea cups ever imagined.

"Need to do the dishes, Harry…" Fred said.

"…this is all the better we could do," George finished the thought.

Ron looked at his brothers like they were fit for a room next to Gilderoy Lockhart in St. Mungo's.

Harry reached for the tray and plucked off the largest tea cup. It was short, but very stout. For some reason, it just seemed angry.

Hermione cautiously reached out her hand and took a tall pale yellow cup. It had horses and small flowers painted on it.

Ron accepted, grudgingly, the third tea cup. It was taller than Harry's but not quite as stout. It seemed extremely heavy in Ron's hand, like he was holding up a Muggle bowling ball.

"Drink up," George cackled.

Hermione and Ron immediately set the cups near Harry on the coffee table. Neither of them would ever forget that the twins and Harry had founded a joke shop, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.

"What did you do to them," Ron asked.

Harry lifted up his cup and took a large swallow. "Not what you think, Ron."

Harry set the teacup down on the coffee table and spent a few moments arranging the other two. He'd lined them up.

He looked to the twins and sighed. "They don't get the joke, do they?"

Fred laughed. "No. But it's a good one. George and I have been working on a new wheeze. The research we did discovered how…"

George butted in. "…to transfigure a person into a teacup. We've made a joke version that lasts for thirty minutes."

Harry looked at his friends on the sofa. "What they did to the Dursleys for me doesn't have an expiration date. They added a silencing charm to keep them from squawking. This one," Harry touched the biggest cup, "I call Vernon. This one is Aunt Petunia and that last one I call Dudders."

Harry laughed.

"We're calling them Talking Teacups. They will be our biggest seller in a few months, I think," Fred said.

Ron and Hermione were unable to look away from the cups, the people who had tortured Harry Potter off and on for nearly sixteen years of his life. Ron was the first one to start laughing.

"Jokes and Muggles, huh?"

Harry smiled back. "Something like that, Ron. Something very like that."


	2. As Mad as a Goblin

As Mad As a Goblin

A crack filled the small room and Dobby the house elf appeared. He was wearing a preposterous number of knitted hats and had a tunic that seemed to be made out of socks and tea towels.

He jumped and down in his excitement and then handed a tightly wrapped scroll to Harry.

"Dobby had done it, Harry Potter." The house elf hadn't even noticed Ron and Hermione in the room yet. "Mr. Wheezy wrote right back."

Ron looked to Harry. "My Dad?"

George responded. "No, Bill. He's just back at Gringotts now."

Bill Weasley, a one-time cursebreaker for the Wizarding Bank, had been mauled by an untransformed werewolf when he was defending Hogwarts the night Dumbledore died. Now he had returned to the goblin-run bank in a less strenuous position.

"Well, what's Bill have to do with this," Ron asked. His first concern, after food, was usually the protection of his own family.

"Bill is another member of the Committee of Marauders. But I think we have enough folks here to get started," Harry said. Hearing no objections, he pointed to the house elf. "Dobby, take a seat please. We'll get to your report in just a second."

Dobby bowed deeply and then plonked himself onto a small stack of books near the fireplace.

"I call this organizational meeting of the Committee of Marauders to order, then," Harry said. "Since the guiding chairmen Prongs, Padfoot, and Moony seem to be absent at this time, I will preside." Everyone in the room knew that Prongs, Harry's father, and Padfoot, Harry's godfather, would never be able to attend a meeting. The fourth of the original Marauders, Wormtail, deserved no mention as he had betrayed Harry's parents and had helped to resurrect Voldemort in their fourth year. No one asked about where Remus Lupin, Moony, was.

"The first order of business is money."

Hermione turned to Ron and mouthed the word 'money' to him. Ron shrugged his shoulders.

Harry continued, "Our opponents have entirely too much of it and we don't have any. But, if we run this whole thing the right way, we don't need much. We do need to make sure Voldemort and the Death Eaters don't have any."

Harry held up the scroll and made a gesture to open it. "Due to some valuable advice we've just received, I think we can take care of that." Harry proceeded to read the note aloud.

"'Dear Mr. Potter, Per your letter, I am having a statement prepared for your holding at Gringotts. As to your other question, I fondly recall my sixth year at Hogwarts when I played on the Quidditch Team. We had an unbroken record, nine wins. In total our Seeker caught the snitch thirty-eight times. We accumulated nine hundred eighty points in total, a record at the time. I wish you luck with your Quidditch project. William Weasley, Teller Trainee."

Ron was the first one to speak. "What tosh is that? You can't win nine games or catch the snitch thirty-eight times."

Fred laughed out loud. "Brother of mine, you are denser than a cauldron bottom. It's Bill's shoddy code, just enough to fool goblins who understand nothing about Quidditch."

"Six, nine, thirty eight, and nine hundred eighty," Hermione said.

Harry nodded. "Vault numbers, in Gringotts."

"No way," Ron shouted. "No one can break in there."

"Voldemort did," Hermione said. "Our first year, looking for the Sorcerer's Stone."

Her pseudo-boyfriend's indignation deflated. "Right."

"Harry," Hermione said, turning to her insane raven-haired friend, "you want us to break into Gringotts to rob the Death Eaters?"

"Break in, yes," Harry said. "Rob them, no."

Hermione hadn't listened. "There's only one thing worse than an angry goblin, Harry. That's an angry Veela. Remember that Bill is marrying a quarter-Veela. If you screw up, you'll have goblins and Fleur Delacoeur-Weasley hunting you until your dying breath."

"Better them than Voldemort," Harry said.

Hermione was already planning a retort, but Ron reached over and stopped her. "What do you mean you're not robbing Gringotts?"

"We don't need the money. We just need for Voldemort not to be able to use it."

"What are you thinking up there, mate," Ron asked.

Harry nodded at the twins. Fred stood up and rumbled around behind a stack of books. He pulled out a number of signs with Whinging Realty painted on them.

"House for sale signs, Harry," Hermione said. "You're going to keep Death Eaters out of their vaults with real estate signs?"

Harry smiled. "I had Professor Flitwick teach me the Fidelius Charm, Hermione. Said I needed to reprotect 12 Grimmauld Place once Dumbledore had died. It's a really simple spell, his letter back was just a few lines long. But, I have no plans to use the Fidelius at the Black home."

"Inside Gringotts," Ron asked.

"On the vaults," Harry said. "The Malfoy vault, the Lestrange vault, the Carrow vault, and a special vault set up by the prior Minister of Magic. The main paymasters, the main financial supports to what Tom Riddle has created. They are some of the oldest vaults at Gringotts and one of the newest."

Even George and Fred looked surprised by that.

Harry stood up from his coffee table seat and walked over to the real estate signs. He looked them over and then turned to George. "I think they should say 'Death Eater funds impounded by the Committee of Marauders.'"

Ron was the first one to laugh. "That's bloody brilliant. No one knows who the Committee of Marauders is. And the Daily Prophet will be bound to print a picture of the sign. It'll be a conviction without a trial."

Harry nodded as if to say 'exactly.'

"Dobby and I will be visiting my vault on August 1st. We'll take care of these other four vaults at the same time."

"There are dragons down there," Hermione said, not yet convinced although she was holding back a smile.

"Harry's beaten dragons before," Fred said. "Plus Dobby can just apparate around in there. Nothing's stopping him from standing in front of a vault. Only the insides of the vaults are impenetrable."

The room fell silent for a second as everyone thought over the plan.

"How much," Ron asked. "These four vaults, how much?"

Harry looked at the parchment again but didn't see anything like the code words he'd communicated to Dobby.

"I don't know," Harry said. "Millions, maybe tens of millions of galleons."

Ron's jaw dropped.

"They'll come for you, Harry. They'll come for this Committee of Marauders," Hermione said.

"That's exactly what we want, Mione. Exactly. Now on to the second point. New tactics."

Ron laughed. "Tying up their money sounds like a new tactic, Harry."

"It's one new tactic. But as we plan the rest of this out, we need to keep a couple of principles in mind," Harry said.

"It's gotta be massive," Fred said.

"It's gotta be unexpected," George said.

"They've pulled us into traps dozens of times now, of one sort or other," Hermione said, finally getting into the spirit.

"It's gotta be safe," Ron said, clearly thinking of his disfigured brother and how close he'd come to death himself that night not long ago.

"It's gotta be a stacked deck," Harry said. "Stacked in our favor. When Voldemort captured me with that portkey in my fourth year, he'd spent an entire year waiting for that to happen. Moody was there the entire time, they could have done it any time. They had everything arranged. They wanted the spectacle, they wanted the advantage of distraction and surprise. They should have killed me then."

"So, we're learning from our enemies now," Hermione said.

"They've been a touch more successful than we have," Ron said, rolling his eyes.

Harry looked over to Dobby, but the house elf didn't have anything to say.

"Our new tactics, then: never get pulled into a fair fight, always ambush, shoot for the dramatic. As much as the actual damage Death Eaters do, they're ten times more effective for the fear they generate. People don't want to stand up to them. It's a small group and there are a lot of neutral wizards in the world. Except they're afraid."

The rest of the meeting moved quickly, but it was a long agenda. They finally adjourned when the sun began to set.

"I think we should watch a Muggle movie tonight," Harry said. "Maybe _Ocean's Eleven_, a great vault heist movie. They broke in, didn't steal anything the first time, then were invited in under disguises and got the money out. It gave me the idea."

Fred and George laughed. They'd been plotting with Harry since the day he'd returned to Number Four, Privet Drive. They'd already seen a number of Muggle movies now and were coming to appreciate their father's interest in Muggle technology.

Ron moved immediately into the kitchen and searched for food. Hermione looked like she wanted to talk some more with Harry, but then she walked out of the living room.

Harry stooped down and picked up the pages he'd dropped on the floor. They were his master plan. Then he looked back to the coffee table.

"I guess I'd better bring them along," Harry said. He'd thought about locking them inside the cupboard where Harry had himself spent the first ten years of his life.

Harry carefully picked up the three tea cups, his transfigured aunt, uncle, and cousin, and decided to bring them along on this new journey.

Next Chapter: Tempting Mrs. Black


	3. Tempting Mrs Black

A/N: I appreciate the kind reviews I've received for this story so far. I am very interested to hear what anyone else might have to say about this story.

Tempting Mrs. Black

Harry Potter walked into the filthy entrance hall of his inherited home. It was both the same and completely different from how it had looked when Sirius had been alive. Harry sighed, but he turned back to his work. It was a nearly vacant place, vacant but for the screaming woman permanently stuck to the wall. Harry grasped onto the other magical portrait he had found in the basement and drug it behind him. He had work to do in here; this was the only sticking point in their current plans. Everything else had started off with a bang and it was only a week since the organizational meeting of the Committee of Marauders.

"Mrs. Black," Harry shouted out. The portrait of Sirius Black's mother kept shouting out "blood traitors" and "filthy mudbloods" at the top of her magical voice.

The Order of the Phoenix had abandoned 12 Grimmauld Place nearly as soon as Dumbledore had died. As the secret keeper to the Fidelius Charm placed over the residence, Dumbledore had ensured that no one could speak its location or even find it unless he personally told an initiate where it was. With him dead, the charm had collapsed and they were exposed. But Harry thought they had all been glad to leave because of this harpy stuck to the wall.

Harry hadn't recast the Fidelius Charm around his inherited home, although he was quite proficient at the spell now. An exposed home was bad for the Order, but exactly what Harry wanted. Snape, the betrayer, would be able to spread the location around.

Harry dragged the magical picture of the dirty old man and finally got it positioned in front of Mrs. Black's portrait. When she looked out from her frame, she saw Harry and the person in the picture and just howled louder. She didn't see the copy of the Daily Prophet that was half-obscured on the trash ridden floor.

There were two headline stories:

Riots as Gringotts Remains Closed for Third Day

By Tortius Fletcher

More than forty people stood outside the goblin bank today and attempted to storm inside. This disastrous event, only averted when goblins poured melted snark wax onto the crowd, only escalates the problems for Gringotts. The wizarding bank has been unable to break the charms or curses placed on at least four vaults inside that made them appear to disappear.

"It's bloody awesome," Fred Weasley, a local store owner, said. "Everything is flying off my shelves while these people are trying to take revenge on the goblins." Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes specializes in practical jokes of all kinds. Several rioters through Fanged Frizzbees at the higher windows of the bank. Others used bubotuber pus on the goblins standing outside the bank attempting to keep order.

The current speculation ripping through the crowd was that someone had used a Fidelius Charm on the missing vault. A few prominent vault holders said that they had been let in through the rear entrance of Gringotts to cast their own Fidelius Charms over their vaults in the last few days.

Ragnok, the Gringotts head goblin, has been silent during this turmoil. But Professor Binns of Hogwarts assures us that this is the first time Gringotts has been closed for even an hour since the Graeye Goblin Revolution of 1138…

Hogwarts School to Close

By Rita Skeeter

The Chairwitch of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, Imeldine Nigellus Bones, announced that Hogwarts would not be reopening this year following the death of former Headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

"The children, you see," she said, in a long, boring, rambling statement, "the children just wouldn't be safe enough. So we'll be owling lessons to their homes and conducting practicums via the Floo Network. It's not as good as in-person instruction, but it's a lot safer than plopping them down in You-Know-Who's backyard." Obviously the Chairwitch was referring to Voldemort's seemingly incredulous ability to get at people like Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived and Chosen One, whom this reporter has had the pleasure of interviewing numerous times during his career.

Acting Headmistress Minerva McGonagall couldn't contain her anger long enough to give a coherent statement after this reporter ambushed her with the news. In fact, it was only quick spell work that kept yours truly from being transfigured into a Mongolian leaping lizard…

Harry wasn't looking at the old paper. He knew that the goblin-run bank was still closed after eight days. The cursebreakers had tried everything by now; Bill Weasley made daily reports and was having the time of his life watching his human and goblin colleagues scurrying around.

No, Harry had a different subject on his mind. His eyes were firmly planted on Mrs. Black. And her eyes were full of anger and hatred. "Filth. Impure, lying blood traitor."

"Mrs. Black," Harry said. His voice was back to a normal tone, but the picture facing him was yelling louder than ever.

This was his third day of attempting to subdue Mrs. Black. But nothing had worked so far. Hermione hadn't found any method of dissolving a Permanent Sticking Charm. Even trying to blast the walls around the picture had failed. She'd had them made Imperturable.

This was Harry's last option. He pulled out his wand, with his eyes firmly planted on Mrs. Black, and spoke the word "Obliviate" toward the framed picture he was clutching.

Immediately the old man in the picture looked blank and confused. In just a few moments he recovered enough to ask Harry question. "I say, do you think I could get a spot of jam? I love raspberry with my crumpets."

Harry smiled. Spells did work on paintings.

Mrs. Black, however, was unamused. "Filthy traitor, I will keep screaming all night and day even if you wipe my mind. I know what I'm about. You can't use your filthy memory charm on me. I'll always know a filthy stinkpot like you when I see them."

Harry let the picture fall backwards and slam against the floor.

The powerful noise silenced Mrs. Black for just a second. It was all Harry needed. "Let's see if we can compromise, Mrs. Black."

"Compromise? With filth? Never. Blacks never compromise. We may be insane, we may stick our dead house elves on the wall, but we never compromise our principles. There are bad apples in every generation, but we blast them off the family tree. Blast blast. Shoots!"

Harry let her anger peter out for a second before he started speaking again. "Mrs. Black, I think you know that your son Sirius" "Blood traitor, I'd like to string him up by his unmentionables" "made me his heir when he died." Harry wasn't letting Mrs. Black bother him this time. He needed the effect to work. "That means this house is mine. I can do whatever I want with it. Do you understand?"

"Oh, yes, that filth-mucking spawn of mine. I should have jumped from the top of a tower instead of letting him stab me in my heart that way."

Harry stifled his giggles. If you got past the shouting, Mrs. Black was sort of amusing to talk with. In a twisted, wizarding sort of way.

"I was thinking that since I couldn't remodel the home the way I wanted, I would just give it away. Let me show you what I had in mind." He lifted his wand to Mrs. Black's forehead and said _Petrificus Totalus_. Her horrible, angry features froze into place.

"I take it you can still see and hear. But you can't speak, right?" Harry didn't wait for a response that wasn't coming. "I will give you one minute to consider my offer. Then I will release the bind. If you accept, then we'll work something out. If you don't, then I will donate this house to that Muggle primary school just up the road. I know they need more space for their youngest students, the five- and six-year-old Muggles. I'd insist that the ugly painting of the mean woman remain as part of the gift, of course. You know what Muggle children would do to an ugly old painting. They'd touch you. They'd lick you with their tongues. They'd snot on you and maybe even puke on you once in a while. And maybe a bloody nose from time to time, talk about dirty blood. And you'd just hang there forever. Not able to leave the picture, not able to rant. Just feeling the touches and never being able to do anything about it."

Harry stopped for a second to let his words clang around in the insane Mrs. Black's mind.

"Or, you could tell me how to get you off this wall. Then maybe I'll be willing to donate you to a pureblood family, hmm. Maybe a nice wall in a very old family with no half-bloods or Muggleborns allowed."

He raised up his wand and cancelled his spell. He looked at his watch and started counting the seconds.

"Muggles, filth," Mrs. Black shrieked. "You'd never do that to me. You'd never spell me into silence. I couldn't even do that with Sirius' portrait, how can you do it, you manky halfblood."

Harry noted the reference to Sirius, but he had this negotiation to work through first.

"Forty seconds, Mrs. Black. Think of the snot, the boogers getting wiped across your canvas."

"Filth," she moaned. "You'll put me in a good home? Obedient house elves, no filth traipsing through the hallways waking me up?"

Harry looked up from his watch. It seemed like a capitulation.

"Only the very best, Mrs. Black." Harry had already planned out exactly who would be receiving this portrait.

Just a second later the frame and picture slid to the floor.

"How did you do that, Mrs. Black," Harry asked with no amount of admiration.

"The picture has to consent to be moved, you imbecile."

"And what about the portrait of Sirius," Harry asked.

"I tried burning it, chopping it, hexing it to oblivion. I poured water on it. I boiled it in brandy. Finally I just shoved it into the ramshackle building behind the house. I hope spiders started laying eggs on it. I hope moths ate the whole thing. Or birds have pecked his traitorous eyes out…"

_Silencio_.

Harry didn't even speak the words. His wand just picked up on the thought in his mind. Even his beautiful wand was tired of her ranting.

"Dobby."

The house elf, stooping under the weight of a box in his arms, appeared with barely a sound. He set the box gently on the ground and then looked up with his dopey big eyes. He was excited.

"Harry Potter, Dobby has done it. All the ones from the Ministry."

"And the Death Eaters," Harry asked.

"Every one."

The HELP Team was already working out better than expected. Dobby, of course, had been the one to suggest the name the night they got organized. HELP: House Elves Loves Pranking.

"Have the elves been helpful with the other things?"

"Oh yes, Harry Potter. Dobby is so pleased. That bad man Nott's elf, Hubba Hubba, laced his food with U-No-Poo for four days already. He's flopping around in pain like a broken fish."

Harry chuckled. It was only one of the cruel, delightful things he'd asked the elves to work on. Bellatrix Lestrange, the murderer of his godfather Sirius, was to be fed amortensia until she fell in love with a Muggle, any Muggle, the uglier the better. Lucius Malfoy was given a drug that made all his food taste like creamed Brussels sprouts. The man was beginning to think himself insane. Severus Snape was beginning to ooze different flavors of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean from his pores. That was a particularly devilish trick the twins had concocted.

"So there's just one thing left to do, Dobby. I need for the elves to start nattering on about this place. Just the ones in the homes of Death Eaters. Just little grumbles about Kreacher being given clothes."

Dobby almost squeaked in joy before he vanished out of the room.

Harry stooped down to look inside the box. He lifted the lid and was awed with their success so far. In one evening, all the Aurors and most of the Ministery Department heads had their real wands replaced with specially created joke wands. The regular ones that Fred and George said would turn into rubber chickens or a piece of rhubarb pie when someone tried to use them. The ones the Ministry got would send a magical shockwave back into its caster's hand whenever it was used. A light, almost pleasant tingling that got stronger the more it was used. After the fifth use, they turned into rotten flobberworms.

The evening after the Ministry wands were all replaced, the HELP Team replaced the ones belonging to Death Eaters, but these ones were far more interesting. They would cast the spell requested. They just wouldn't fling it at the requested target. Boomerang Bounders is what the twins wanted to call them. Harry wasn't sure these things should ever see the commercial market.

In total, there were more than seventy wands in the box. Harry knew that everyone who discovered their wands had gone missing would seek out a new one. But it wouldn't be Ollivander who sold it, as he'd gone missing from Diagon Alley months earlier. And they wouldn't have much time to break in their new wands.

The door popped open and a pair of Weasley heads peered in at him. "Fred, George, don't stand on ceremony," Harry yelled down to them.

Harry closed the box of wands and walked over to his fellow Marauders. "I just found out there's a magical portrait of Sirius around here somewhere."

Fred smiled first. "That's awesome. A direct pipeline to a true Marauder."

Harry nodded. "We have seventy wands, I think. Did you bring enough blocks?"

George looked suspiciously at his brother. "He got excited. We've got almost two hundred blocks made now."

He pulled one out of his enchanted knapsack and handed it to Harry. Harry placed the end of his end inside it and sat the thing on the floor. He pointed the contraption toward an empty wall and then said, "Infinite."

A series of spells began pulsing out of the wand. In fact, they were exactly the same spells Harry had cast over the last few days, but in reverse order. The wall was silenced and petrified and obliviated before Harry stopped the process.

"That will work, boys. That will work just fine. How long do they work?"

"Don't know," George said. "Fred let one go for three hours. It just kept on ticking."

Harry nodded. That was long enough.

"Keep the extra blocks. We'll need them later."

George smiled wide. "That's not all we brought."

It never was. Harry was proud of his devious business partners.

Fred dumped the knapsack out on the floor. There were a dozen weird objects laying there, some of them filled up with fluids.

"Love potions?" Harry asked.

"Among other things," George said.

Harry reached into the pile and touched a round ball. He had the immediate compulsion to eat Chocolate Frogs and nothing but Chocolate Frogs. So delicious, so chocolatey. And he wanted to give all his frog cards to a girl named Romilda Vane, such a pretty name. Romilda.

Fred tugged Harry hand away from the ball and Harry sighed. "Nice," he said. "I would have killed for a chocolate frog."

"We call it a Singing Siren. Made with a drop of veela blood, you know," George said. "Expensive as a new bludger, but oh so worth it."

"Can you set it so people are compelled to do more than lust after chocolate frogs?"

"Oh yeah," Fred said. "I compelled George to go out and find me a pound of lint."

"And I set it so Fred would drink pumpkin juice until he sicked up."

Harry was laughing. "And in any language?" An idea was forming. The twins shrugged. Harry could do some testing later on.

"Now," Harry asked. "What about that Polarex spell you were working on? I'd like to have a temporary portrait made."

The twins obliged and even helped Harry to hang it where Mrs. Black had just vacated. Then they started positioning the wands into various places all over the first floor. When they were done, it looked like a dirty, abandoned home. Nothing unusual.

"Thanks, guys," Harry said. "Now I just need to see about two portraits. I've got a great home for Mrs. Black and I'd really love to talk with my godfather."

Next Time: A Raid Gone Wrong


	4. A Raid Gone Wrong

A/N: I appreciate the kind reviews I've received for this story so far. I am very interested to hear what anyone else might have to say about this story.

A Raid Gone Wrong

Vlad Lunklox had been standing outside One Grimmauld Place for seven hours. It was just now approaching midnight and the rest of the Death Eaters he had contacted would be apparating in momentarily. He watched as the lights in the top floor finally turned off.

"Stupid kids," he said. "Don't even know what the Fidelius is." In fact, aside from being Unplottable and having anti-apparition wards, 12 Grimmauld Place was surprisingly unprotected for a wizard home. Dumbledore's death had obviously destroyed a lot of the protections that had been put in place.

The orders from on high were simple. Snatch Potter, kill everyone else. Being a Death Eater wasn't as hard as pouring pumpkin juice into a goblet. It was probably the reason why Vlad had been accepted.

The sound of a dozen pops broke through the silent night just then. His hit team members were nothing if not prompt. Goyle, Parkinson, Brownlow, Mugwump, the Carrows, Brutus, Dolohov, Dorkins, Nutcombe, Wheezer, and Wickett were with him. Thirteen in all, a lucky baker's dozen.

They quickly crossed the street and pushed their way up the front stairs of the wizard home. A quick unlocking spell and they were inside. The place smelled like it hadn't been inhabited in ages.

Vlad Lunklox lit up his wand and led the party inside. He wanted to search the lower floors before proceeding upstairs to where Potter would be sleeping. He moved in front of a wall of portraits and almost dropped his wand.

"That's cheeky," he whispered, jabbing his wand toward the portrait. The Potter brat had already had a portrait of himself mounted in his home. The kid was barely seventeen years old.

Vlad made to continue his search through the first floor, but he hadn't counted on a number of things. First, Harry's portrait could talk. And it decided to begin talking.

"Good evening," the portrait said. "Welcome to my humble home." Then at the top of its voice it screamed out a number of spells.

Second, Vlad hadn't counted on Harry to be hiding under his invisibility cloak on the first landing on the stairs. Nor for Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Bill Weasley to be scattered throughout the house in case they were needed. Plus everyone was interested to see if this crackbrained idea would work.

Third, Vlad Lunklox hadn't expected for the main door to seal shut or for seventy different wands scattered throughout the house to activate and begun showering them with spells every few seconds.

In the first minute, Vlad was hit with aguamenti, soaking him to the bone; a Bat-Bogey Hex; a lubricating spell which landed him on his knees and his right wrist; a spell which ripped his pants off and attempted to change his soiled nappies; a slug burping spell, which left him vomiting over himself; the cruciatus curse, which left him writhing in pain for a few seconds; and a self-pleasuring charm, which left his lower half as messy as the slug ooze coating his upper half.

The other Death Eaters were fairing equally badly. Some of them had managed shields of various sides, but none could figure out who was attacking them or how. In the melee, they were all moving in and out of the range of various spells. None of them realized that the shooting was coming from fixed positions. It seemed like a hundred ghosts were showering them with spells.

Two died quickly from the Avada Kedavra which had probably been cast by Death Eater wands. Nearly all of them were hit with the Cruciatus Curse at least once and also a lubricating charm. In this crowd of ministry and Death Eater wands, pain and pleasure were closely related. One of the wands had cast nothing but Unforgivables. Another had varied between lubricating charms and an embarrassing variety of self-pleasuring spells. Had anyone asked, that latter was Severus Snape's stolen wand. A third had cast only watering and gardening spells. The entire vast space was filled with wondrous, unpredictable magic every second.

Within two minutes, every one of them was curled up on the ground. The floor was covered in a solid inch of water and slippery substances mingling together.

Two were dead (Wheezer and Wickett); another three were near death by the time Harry stopped the wizarding light show three minutes after the Death Eaters entered his inherited house. The entire room was filled with bizarre machinations. Goyle had a chin the size of a kneazel. Dolohov had been obliviated at least four times and was now drooling all over himself. Brownlow had a body full of painful boils. Amycus Carrow had had a knee cap magically removed. Dorkins and Mugwump were both petrified, although Mugwump had also been turned purple.

Harry called off the wands and stood up, removing the invisibility cloak. He also cancelled the darkness charm he'd cast inside the room. He draped the cloak carefully over the banister and walked down to the scene of the battle. Every few feet he'd yell out _Scourgify _or another cleansing charm to take care of scorch marks on the walls or floor. Someone was going to have a lot of fun cleaning up this place.

"I am going to have to learn more of those engorging charms," George said, catching up with Harry.

"I've never seen so many different things he could load into pranks," Fred said, almost in awe. He had wished he had a piece of parchment on which to write down the ideas that came to him while he watched the show.

What both twins neglected to say was that they were now planning to add an adults-only section to their store. The sheer variety of things that had come out of that filthy wand over in the right corner made them drool with the possibilities of what they could sell to old, lonely wizards.

"Oh, bloody Merlin," Ron shouted. The boy looked he was hopped up on a case of Chocolate Frogs. Although Hermione wasn't saying anything, Harry knew she was also impressed.

Bill Weasley came down the stairs and shook Harry's hand. "Never seen anything like that." He chuckled. "The goblins should be glad you were only a little angry with them, Harry. Something like this could have wiped out Gringotts."

"True, Bill," Harry said. "But their neutrality in this war was worth only a little punishing. They allowed the Light and the Dark to use their services, so they got a light slap. These folks," he said, kicking out at Goyle's groaning body, "are going to wish their parents had never met."

Fred and George were sloshing around in the inch of water on the floor, trying not to stumble to the floor. "A slip-and-slide," George said, "you know, for kids." "And a permanent lubricating charm," Fred said. "And a degnoming spell, I saw one. We could enchant a rubber ball to smack down garden gnomes," George said. They were whispering together their half-formed plots and plans.

Harry moved through the room and plucked the Death Eaters' wands from their hands. "Won't be much on 'em," Ron said. All the thin pieces of wood had the distinct look of being straight from the box. Which wasn't surprising how it was the HELP Team that had stolen their earlier wands, how it was their own wands that had just beat them into submission.

"I know," Harry said. "Too new. But more wands will make this trick even better the next time we use it."

George and Fred almost shrieked in joy. "Only if we can come and watch," they both said.

Harry dropped a small metal trinket onto Wickett's head. A few seconds later, the trinket and body disappeared.

"Portkey," Bill asked.

"Something like that," Harry said. "The Aurors use these to send dying and dead people to St. Mungo's."

"What about the rest of them," Hermione asked. She'd been the least involved in preparations to this point as her dentist parents had just taken her for a long weekend to Bristol.

"It's incredible," Ron said. "There are dungeons here…"

"Six levels of them," Fred said. "Underground."

"The Blacks enjoyed their tortures," George continued.

"Sirius told me about them. His portrait, I mean. He even mentioned that one cell had been set up as a bridal suite, apparently certain Blacks enjoyed pain a bit more than they ever wanted public." Harry shivered at the thought.

Harry walked over to Goyle with a chin the size of a kneazel. He threw a playing card on the man's head. The One of Clubs.

Goyle and his chin disappeared just a moment later.

"He went downstairs," Harry said.

"Why not Azkaban," Hermione asked.

Harry snorted. "The place is as leaky as Neville Longbottom's memory. First Sirius got out. Then a whole pack of Death Eaters, plus all the dementors. I wouldn't trust them to guard a ham and pickle sarny."

"So who's taking care of them," she asked, as another two still living people popped out of the room.

"Winky, Dobby's friend," Harry said. "She's still half drunk on butterbeer most of the time, but she's getting better."

Harry was waiting for a howl of indignation from Hermione about his using house elves as private prison guards. All her nonsense about S.P.E.W. left Harry a bit cold. But Hermione didn't say anything.

Bill and Ron had taken to using conjured towels to try and soak up the mess on the floor. Fred and George were still so excited they could barely stand still.

"Let's get this place cleaned up," Harry said. "But not too clean. It still needs to look like a secret hideout, you know. So mop up the water then we'll lay down a fresh coat of dust and grime."

George laughed first. "I've got just the spells for that."

Harry nodded. They were great for any kind of disorder and mayhem. He was lucky to have the twins are partners in this plot.

Thirty minutes later, the house looked as disreputable and unused as it had before the Death Eaters had walked inside.

"What's next," Bill asked.

"And why wasn't Dobby here," Hermione asked.

Harry smiled at the latter question. "Dobby is running an important errand right now. And, as for what's next, I think we need some more practice before we begin taking on the big game in this hunt."

George and Fred loved to hear the word 'practice' because in Harry-speak, that meant 'fun.'

* * *

"What in the good green Merlin is going on here? Are the portraits rioting?" Narcissa Malfoy muttered to herself. She had just tucked Draco into bed in the secret dungeons below the manor where she was hiding him. She hadn't enjoyed ascending two hundred twenty two steps to come into this cacophony.

"You will stop that now," she said in her loudest non-shouting voice. Malfoys, of course, didn't shout or pluck their own nosehairs or pick up sickles lying on the street. Nothing as common as that.

"I demand to know who is causing this chaos," she said as she halted in the main hall. All of the portraits seemed to be grumbling. Narcissa turned on her heels are surveyed the room. Every portrait was awake and most were muttering in murderous tones.

"Well? Who can tell me why you're all up and…" The words failed here. She didn't know what the portraits were doing exactly. Some were pouting. Some were wringing their hands. And some had just walked out of their frames entirely.

"She's not a Malfoy," the portrait of old uncle Cottery muttered.

"What," Narcissa said.

"She's not a Malfoy," several portraits shouted back.

"She might be your aunt," Cottery Malfoy huffed, "but she's not a Malfoy."

"Aunt," Narcissa said, utterly confused. "What does that barmy woman have to do with the price of murtlaps in the springtime?"

"I heard that," a fierce shout rained down from the upper regions of the room. "Narcissa, you were always a disappointment. A Malfoy really? They're purebloods, it's true, but they're not our kind of purebloods you know. Not dark enough by half. And they don't whip their house elves into submission when they're babies. Leads to bad manners later on. Oh, the things I did to Kreacher to make him comply, the whimpering. How I loved the screams of pain in the morning."

Narcissa looked up and saw the horrid portrait on the third row above the floor. Her face blanched. She knew that portrait, the one from the Black home. How the hell did it get into her house.

Narcissa turned and ran down the hallway.

"I'm not through speaking with you, young woman. You need to supervise your elves far better. And you haven't kept up with your studies. I doubt you could even summon a demon if you tried, Narcissa." The crazy woman from the main hall was following behind Narcissa, leaping from painting to painting. Narcissa opened the door to a small broom closet and threw herself inside. There were no portraits inside.

"That's okay," her aunt shouted. "I can wait for you, Narcissa. You should listen to my advice, you know. Respect your elders."

Even through the door it sounded like a dozen harpies were laying siege to Narcissa's home.

"Hubby," she shouted out. Suddenly a diminutive house elf popped into the small closet. "Where did she come from?"

The house elf looked up and Narcissa couldn't hold her rage. It looked like the elf was laughing.

"Leave me, Hubby."

In turn Narcissa called for Flobby, Slobby, Drobby, Mobby, Jeeves, and Hitchins. All of them were laughing or barely keeping their amusement in check. It almost made sense that the portrait of her dead aunt was so incensed. Something had bewitched her house elves. They were a drooling, stammering lot just now. Maybe it was a Retardo Jinx.

Narcissa screamed. None of the elves would tell her what had happened. The other portraits in the house were very disgruntled from what she could hear in the broom cupboard. And her son was far away from being able to help her.

Narcissa was now trapped.

Coming Next: At the Corner of Fudge and Umbridge Avenues


	5. At the Corner of Fudge and Umbridge Ave

A/N: I appreciate the reviews I've received for this story so far. I have responded to each one I've received. I'd be glad to hear what you think of this story so far. The next chapters will be a bit slower coming out.

At the Corner of Fudge and Umbridge Avenues

Most of the people who worked at the Ministry of Magic had tremendous smiles on their faces. The upset at losing their wands a week earlier had been replaced with the almost daily joy of dying or dead Death Eaters appearing at St. Mungo's.

In fact, the Aurors had cordoned off the small area on the main floor of St. Mungo's where these folks kept seeming to appear. It was their satellite office. Dawlish was staffing it just then when another two bodies popped into view. His head popped up above the issue of the Daily Prophet he was reading.

"Seventeen and eighteen, I'd imagine." He didn't sound surprised or excited.

The first few who had appeared less than a week ago had scared the holy Merlin out of everyone in the hospital. I mean bloody Death Eaters, some still swollen with jinxes, appearing out of nowhere still in their robes. It was a frightening sight.

It wasn't any more. Dawlish reached down to check for pulses before he realized that these ones wouldn't need healers.

He'd need to take them over to the Ministry as soon as Shacklebolt came to relieve him. How the man helped to guard the Muggle Prime Minister and still do some of his duties as an Auror made no sense. It was like he was using a Time Turner, aside from the fact they were all smashed.

Dawlish set down the newspaper and looked at the Death Eaters on the floor. One had been hexed every way to Sunday, even his eight inch toenails were still growing their way out of the dead man's boots. The other had been partially transfigured into a sofa, green and brown on one half, Death Eater black the other side.

"No one duels that way," Dawlish said. He's read the reports that had come back from the magical examiners. These people were poked and punched and pummeled with every silly spell and every kind of unforgivable. It looked like perverts, and children's nannies, and gardeners, and Quidditch moms, and advanced herbologists were ganging up to kill off Death Eaters. No one had ever seen a person transfigured into a womping willow (Death Eater #11) before. It had made for a dramatic sight.

The only constant was that none of them turned up with wands. And no one had shown up to collect the rewards for turning these Death Eaters in. The whole thing made everyone, well, nearly everyone, in the Ministry quite happy. No pesky trials, no Wizengamot, no perilous trips out to Azkaban. Even the paperwork on these folks wasn't all that bad. There wasn't anything to investigate really. The life of an Auror was picking up.

Shacklebolt took that moment to apparate into the small area that Dawlish was sharing with the two Death Eaters. In fact, his foot landed firmly on one of the dead man's hands and Shacklebolt nearly fell on top of Dawlish.

"Can't you keep this place a bit picked up?"

Dawlish smirked. "You my mother," he asked.

Shacklebolt straightened himself up. He shook his head. "No, but I can find you a mothering sort. She's over there right now, you know."

Dawlish turned deathly pale. "You wouldn't."

Shacklebolt laughed. "No, I wouldn't turn her onto you Dawlish. She seems to only have eyes for Fudge."

The two Aurors shared a quick laugh before Dawlish apparated back to the Ministry with the two new 'suspects.' Shacklebolt picked up the newspaper and threw it down again just a few seconds later. He was very frustrated, in a way. No one in the Ministry knew how this was happening. More troubling for him, no one in the Order of the Phoenix knew either.

His eyes flicked down to the floor after Dawlish left with his two 'prisoners.' There was a small card that had fallen off one of the Death Eaters. _Compliments of the Committee of Marauders_, it said.

"Marauders," Shacklebolt said. "Marauders, I've heard that before." Then it hit him. The folks who'd claimed responsibility for what had happened in Gringotts. "Terrorists? Why are terrorists killing Death Eaters?"

He should have looked for another word. Since they were supporting Shacklebolt's side, maybe freedom fighters was a better way to look at it.

From the reports Shacklebolt had seen, the Fidelius had been carefully cast in there. Not only the vaults were obscured but so were all the records relating to the vaults. They still didn't know precisely who the four missing vaults belonged to, but it was pretty clear that the Malfoy vault was one of them. Malfoys not having any kind of money in Gringotts was as preposterous as an acromantula without fangs.

Shacklebolt thought about popping over to the Ministry to show them what'd he found when he heard a loud wail from outside the curtains they'd erected around this corner of St. Mungo's.

"No, take them down. All the portraits, throw them in the flames." It was the wailing of a woman or maybe a hag or a banshee.

Shacklebolt stepped out of his enclosure and was shocked when he saw Narcissa Malfoy being levitated down the hallway. Her hair was mussed, she was paler than usual and very thin. Her ranting picked up every time she saw any kind of portrait. Unfortunately, the first floor of St. Mungo's was covered in them.

"Oh, tear them down. Tear them down and feed them to bowtruckles."

The healer walking aside Narcissa Malfoy was listening to the tiny house elf who had brought Narcissa in. But he had a tough time controlling his confusion. "Locked in a broom closet for seven days? Good Merlin, why wouldn't she leave?"

The house elf whispered away her mistress' secrets. "She was afraid of a magical portrait." The words spread through last quarter of the building. "Take her to the Curses ward. I've heard of fear of magical objects before, it's usually not hard to cure. But for seven days," the healer muttered, "and with house elves who could have helped her. What was she thinking?"

Shacklebolt knew that purebloods like Narcissa never thought of house elves and certainly not as saviors. He chuckled for a second before apparating to the Ministry.

It took just a second to turn over the card and give an explanation. When it came time to return to St. Mungo's Shacklebolt just couldn't. He saw two of the most interesting faces of the last week running through the hallways near the Auror office.

"Fudgey, you need to slow down," the large woman crooned between deep pants. "I'm having trouble keeping up."

"Good," the former Minister of Magic shouted back.

Of course, for all the happy people in the Ministry of Magic, Umbridge and Fudge couldn't be counted among them, at least not in any predictable way. Shacklebolt watched the pair of them sprint down the hall, one running, one chasing. The fun part about this was that it was never clear from day to day who would be running and who chasing. Some days Umbridge shrieked in horror whenever she saw Fudge come near. Other days, like today, she tried to sink her fat little fingers into Fudge's posterior every time she saw him.

Shacklebolt stared after them for a few more moments then popped back to work. But for Fudge, now a counselor of sorts to the current Minister of Magic, the work was just starting. He was feeling achey and tired, the muscles in his legs hurt. But every time he thought about slowing down, he heard the cough "hem hem" behind him or, worse, he heard her voice.

"Fudge-sickle, slow down. We have to talk. I want to bear your children, you know. I'm a bit on in years, but we can kip out and find us a potion or two. I want a big family, you know. Fourteen, no eighteen children. You have a huge house, Fudgey Wudgey, and we need to fill it with beautiful smiling Fudge-Bridges."

The squat, fat woman was completely flushed, her face matching her vibrant pink robes. On days like today when she couldn't find Fudge she'd sit and write lines with her blood quill, "I love Fudge," always with her right hand. On days when she despised Fudge, she'd use the quill on her left hands to write "I hate Cornelius Fudge." Because in truth, she still did enjoy snacking on Chocolate-Lavender Fudge from Honeydukes. She wouldn't want anyone to be confused.

"My Fudgems, you're my life. With your balding head and your girth, I just want to gobble you up. Oh, yes, Fudge, I will have my wicked, wicked way with you." She cackled for a second, then realized that Fudge was gaining on her. She leapt toward him and managed to tackle him to the ground. Then her fat probing fingers were all over his body, especially kneading his flabby posterior.

The former Minister looked on in horror as Umbridge proceeded to wrap her arms around him and cradle him like he was her child. She began to sing, in a horribly offkey way, a half dozen different lullabies with strikingly inappropriate lyrics. Mother should never sing to their children about what they'd like to do with their bare bottoms.

When Rita Skeeter finally conned her way into the corridor with a photographer in tow, most everyone in the Ministry had already walked by the scene. Rita got a half dozen photographs, including one of Umbridge petting her "Ittle Wittle Fudgey," before she fabricated a ridiculous story that was more truth than fiction for once in her life.

"Of course it's an enchantment of some kind," one of the Aurors said while walking by the scene. "Or maybe a love potion. But it couldn't have happened to two nicer people."

"He's going to have the worst bruising on his ass when he wakes up in the morning," another Auror commented.

But no one seemed in the least concerned about ending the enchantment or the potion. It just added to jubilation inside the building. Death Eaters were dying and Fudge and Umbridge were duking it out in a daily grudge match.

All the guesses were wrong, of course. It wasn't true love, flip flopping every day. Nor was it an enchantment or a love potion. No one commented on the bizarre radish earrings Umbridge was wearing. Or the Muggle-style watch Fudge had strapped to his wrist. If anyone had noticed, they would have understood that this was the first public test of Weasley's Singing Sirens. And what a fantastic success it was.

* * *

"Well, of course, they're going to attack the wedding," Harry said. He was talking to his godfather's magical portrait now although he was becoming annoyed. Harry was now of-age, even if Sirius was treating him like a slow member of the Troll family.

"Well, what are you going to do about it," Sirius asked. As the elder Marauder in the room, he had the obligation to ask the question.

Harry smiled.

"Well, we're going to need a dragon and that's all I'm going to say."

Sirius laughed. "Well, Prongs Junior, I tip my hat to you. Or have you explored your animagus side yet? Maybe you're an owl since you like to fly so much."

Harry shook his head. "I'm a little busy right now, maybe after I survive all this."

"I've popped downstairs a few times," Sirius said. "The dungeons are getting awfully full."

"A hundred seven down there. At least Winky has had to cut back on the butterbeer," Harry said.

An awkward silence dropped over the room. "You know Mundungus Fletcher has been thieving from your house, Sirius," Harry said.

"No, Harry, he's been thieving from your house. But I knew it and couldn't stop it."

Thinking of the false Horcrux he and Dumbledore had discovered in Tom Riddle's cave, Harry looked sadly at his godfather's portrait. "I think Fletcher got away with something really valuable, something I need to destroy in order to finish off Voldemort."

"Like a locket, maybe? Or a cup with a badger on it?"

Harry was shocked. "How did you know?"

"My brother Regulus told me a little bit of what he was doing in the days before he was murdered. But it sounded so awful, I obliviated myself."

Harry laughed.

"My portrait for some reason knew all about it, I guess obliviation doesn't carry over from life into art. But it was Kreacher, the pack rat, who kept them safe. He's stashed away a pile of junk all over the house, but he kept four things very well hidden, but that little broom closet has a portrait of my great uncle Alabastard in it. Haven't had much to do so I've been roaming the house."

Sirius explained where the hidden cupboard was located inside 12 Grimmauld Place. As Harry now lived in the spare room over Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, he'd have to wait a while before going to retrieve them.

"Do you know how to destroy them," Sirius asked.

Harry shook his head.

"You'd better work on that, then? Unless you want a grouchy Dark Lord coming back time and again. It's too much work to kill him more than twice, Harry."

Harry laughed. "I know, I know. I'll figure something out, something really dramatic. Get Voldemort's attention, throw him off kilter."

Sirius just sighed with happiness. "You've really learned then. You've got this down part, my boy."

Next Up: A Date with a Dragon


	6. A Date with a Dragon

A/N: I appreciate the reviews I've received for this story so far. I'd be glad to hear what you think of this story. The next chapters, as Harry takes revenge on a number of people, will be a touch more serious and less humorous than the previous ones. FYI.

A Date with a Dragon

The Dark Lord had been furious that every raid for the past two weeks had ended in… well, nobody knew. The Death Eaters went out and never seemed to return. The first group went to snatch Harry Potter. Then there were raids on every other location where Potter had been reported. Nothing. Not even the Daily Prophet had reported in their success or failure.

"I want," the Dark Lord had hissed to his sniveling subject Wormtail, "you to take the giants and the werewolves this time. Kill everyone, but don't touch Harry. Only my wand can kill him."

Wormtail had bitten his tongue at that. 'Didn't work so well the first time around,' he'd wanted to shout. Instead, Wormtail bowed deeply toward the Dark Lord and said, "It will be done."

So now Wormtail was perched on a small hill in his rat form observing the preparations for the Weasley-Delacour wedding. The sounds of laughter and the moving of heavy furniture flew through the air. From time to time, he could see someone step out of the home for a few minutes to take something to a table outside the home. Guests should begin arriving at any moment.

Wormtail ran back to where the other Death Eaters were standing. He had five along with him in case the giants and werewolves were actually successful, you know to help mop up the survivors. The rat, who had spent many years of his life being passed around as a pet to the Weasley children, transformed back into Peter Pettigrew. His silver hand, the reminder that he alone had helped to return Lord Voldemort to life, shot into the air to silence the half breeds, giants, and Death Eaters around him.

"The party will begin shortly. We will attack in thirty minutes. The giants will lead off and smash the temporary wards around the grounds. The werewolves will go next. No maiming, no turning. Just killing." The growls of the disgruntled werewolves drowned out the words Peter Pettigrew tried to speak. He threw his silver fist into the air. They weren't that far away from the Burrow and they couldn't tolerate any advance notice reaching them. "Voldemort wants everyone dead. I and my team will come in third." He walked the group of forty killers through the rest of the plan.

Peter Pettigrew transformed back into Wormtail and went back up the hill to keep up his watch. He could see the first guests arriving and milling around outside the Burrow. The rat gritted his teeth. The entire thing seemed a bit wrong to him. There were children there, other nonpartisans. The public reaction to this attack would be ferocious and angered. But Voldemort would get what Voldemort wanted.

After waiting and watching, it looked like the entire grounds were filling up. People had begun clustering near a tree, apparently for the ceremony to begin. Wormtail ran back down and transfigured himself back into Peter Pettigrew, the dumpy betrayer of friends.

"Go now," he shouted to the fifteen giants. Slowly, dumbly, they stood up, grabbed for their massive clubs, and began lumbering up the small hill that had barely concealed their height from the people in the Burrow.

Pettigrew waited for five minutes before he sent the twenty werewolves into the fight. It couldn't have taken the giants that long to cross over to where the temporary wards were. Pettigrew beckoned at the other Death Eaters as they crawled back up the hill to witness the massacre.

When they got to the top, they saw the giants clubbing away at the wards with all their strength, the werewolves circling the outer perimeter waiting for a chance to attack. The strange thing, of course, was that the wedding was still proceeding as if nothing was happening around them. No one noticed the fifteen giants clubbing away. No one was shrieking about the foul werewolves grinning ferociously at all the small children running around.

As Peter surveyed the scene, something else seemed strange to him. The Burrow seemed larger than he'd remembered it. It seemed far more massive, in fact. As he watched, the house seemed larger and larger. There was something wrong here. With each swing of a club from the giants, the house was growing in size.

Peter Pettigrew started running toward the assault line and began yelling. "Stop," he shouted. "It's a trap." But his voice was too high pitched to carry in the wind. The other Death Eaters, confused by their incompetent leader's actions, trotted along behind him. Peter got to within twenty meters of the giants when the final fall of the clubs happened. Immediately the revelers disappeared. The wards came crashing down. Even the house disappeared.

In its place was a fifty foot tall dragon. Someone shouted out, "Get ter it, Norbert," and then the blasted thing began to attack.

Simultaneously, a half dozen yellow, green, and purple blasts came out of nowhere. So while the dragon cleanly removed the head of one of the giants, two others and a werewolf began howling in pain. Another giant was hit with a spell and then began clubbing at the werewolves. "Bad doggies," it shouted. "Bad." It pulverized one werewolf. "Doggies." It then lobbed off Fenrir Greyback's head. Then the dragon's foot came crashing down on the temporarily helpful giant.

The cowardly Peter Pettigrew was frozen in place. There was no house, no wedding, no one to attack except a fifty foot dragon that was clubbing wolves with its tail and broiling giants with its breath. The stream of curses and hexes was everywhere, but there was no one casting them, no one Pettigrew could see.

Then all of a sudden, Peter realized he was all alone. The other Death Eaters had either fled or were lying dead on the dirt. The giants had all been smashed to bits or burnt to a crisp. The werewolves were decimated, not even their former howls of pain were audible any longer.

Then Peter Pettigrew felt a horrible chill, as if he'd never feel happiness again in his life. In front of him, he saw James Potter, Prongs, one of the people he'd betrayed to the Dark Lord. James was screaming out in anger and then Peter Pettigrew saw his face and body light up with green light. Then he saw Lily.

"No," Peter shouted. He raised his wand. "You're dead, both of you." He shot a few stunners toward the menacing looking Lily. She was clutching a blanket-wrapped baby. "Avada Kedavra," Peter shouted.

As the green light raced toward Lily Evans and her little ethereal Harry clutched in her arms, the illusion disappeared. Instead of a mother protecting her child, there was only a locket affixed to a globe of searing purple. The locket was the strangest looking thing. It had the Slytherin-style S engraved upon it.

In the minute amount of time before the Killing Curse impacted with the locket, Wormtail the Betrayer had only a second to ponder what it was. He never thought about what would happen.

Which was unfortunate for him, really.

When the Killing Curse struck the Horcrux containing a sliver of Voldemort's withered soul, every curse and protective measure Voldemort had imbued into the locket lashed out at its attacker. A shockwave of stunning magic leapt out in every direction, knocking Wormtail and even Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback onto the ground. Then a dozen different Dark Curses flowed toward Wormtail. His hands and legs began to blacken and whither as Dumbledore's own hand did. Then his throat tightened up from the choking curse he'd been hit with. Then his bones were systematically crushed beginning in his feet and moving slowly up his body. For more than four minutes, the curses swirled and tumbled around his body. Finally, as Wormtail died, with every bone in his body crushed nearly into powder, a demonic wail sounded through the entire area where the battle had taken place. Wormtail had died and so had the fragment of soul tucked inside the Horcrux.

There were a variety of popping noises as two living Death Eaters apparated away with the bodies of their fallen comrades. The report they'd make to Voldemort shortly would ensure that their painful lives would be short indeed.

Norbert got up off the ground and didn't seem hurt. But he was still raring for a fight. It took both Charlie Weasley and Rubeus Hagrid, who both emerged from a specially concealed hole in the ground, to settle the dragon down.

Harry crawled out next after the pair of creature handlers got Norbert under control. The smile on his face dissolved when he saw the carnage. Everything was dead. Norbert had been more effective than expected. Way too effective.

He choked down his own fear at having gone too far. These people and beasts had chosen to attack. Nothing would have happened unless they took the first action. Even Wormtail would still be alive save for his casting the Killing Curse on the Horcrux.

Every one of them had chosen this. Every one of them had deserved what they received.

"Did they get enough of a show?" Harry asked. He'd noticed the two Death Eaters who'd apparated away. He'd been hoping for some survivors so Voldemort could get a sense of what he was now facing. Fear was important in the run-up to the final battle. They had finished all the testing they'd needed on the earlier raids they'd destroyed. They had the whole procedure down to a science.

Harry realized that the battle was beginning to change him. For the worse. For the darkness. He knew he had to win, but also not succumb to the temptations that Voldemort had. There was a lot weighing inside his mind as he helped the Weasleys out of the underground bunker.

For once, Fred and George were speechless as they crawled out of the underground bunker. The devastation around them was truly complete.

Ron's first instinct was to cheer until he saw the way everyone else was reacting. The violence looked so much more real in the harsh light of day. Still, he was happy. His brother Bill had been married off the day before, a day earlier than anyone had expected, and was now safely attempting to make baby Weasleys with his new wife.

Hermione was the last one onto the field of battle. Instead of an emotional reaction, she had the satisfied look of a tactician whose plans had worked out. She, of course, had decided on using a Pensieve Projector to create the illusion of the wedding. She had worked out which wards to use to hide the presence of a dragon, which had been Harry's contribution to the plot.

"We're just lucky they didn't send Dementors this time," she said.

"Yeah, lucky," Harry said. He didn't sound like he felt lucky.

Hermione stalked over to her friend and whirled him around. "You can't blame yourself, Harry. They started this battle. Every one of them would have killed you given half a chance. You knew the casualties would mount as we got closer to the end, Harry. This is what had to happen."

Harry turned his head a second and then it was like he was back to his old self. "Fine, Mione," he said. "But Norbert's going back to the dragon preserve. There are different ways to handle this. I should have expected Norbert to be a menace, like he was in our first year. We need something more in the Marauder style, I think."

She didn't argue as she was now taking in the full carnage of the scene.

Harry looked over to where Hagrid was almost cooing over the fifty-foot-tall Norbert. The dragon had been injured in a few places and was now leaking green blood. Hagrid was whispering calming words and the massive beast seemed to be listening to its honorary 'mother,' as Hagrid had taken to calling himself when Norbert first hatched.

Fred and George were eyeing the beast with some suspicion. But their interest in the dragon's wounds, and its blood, soon overwhelmed their fears. The thing seemed calm again. And they needed some dragon blood for some commercial pranks they could sell to the public. Not everything they'd been doing for the past few weeks had been for Harry. They had Harrowing Hellballs almost ready. Pick one up and it ignited, that's what the dragon blood was for, then send it flying. Just before it hit the target, it'd extinguish and land with an enormous splat smelling of harpy dung.

Both George and Fred showed the effects of half-healed burns from earlier testing and both smelled just slightly of harpy dung. It really didn't wash out very easily.

"They Dementor Delites worked well, boys," Harry said, turning toward the twins. The Delites were the hovering globe of matter that had conjured up Wormtail's worst memories, the thing that had tricked him into casting the Killing Curse.

"Thanks, Harry," Fred said.

"But we'll never sell those to the public," George said.

Harry looked confused for a second.

"Bloody depressing things," Fred said.

"No one would want to buy our other pranks after getting one of those used on them," George finished the thought.

Harry shrugged. The twins knew what the public wanted. Harry only knew what he needed to finish out the terms of the Prophecy so that he could go back to having a normal life.

Harry got two steps away from the dragon before Dobby popped into view. The elf looked excited at what he saw, especially the mangled werewolves.

"Dobby has great news, Harry Potter, sir. The house elves has all agreed."

Harry smiled just a bit. "You have the list, then? Which Death Eaters can't stand each other? Where the petty squabbles are?"

Dobby jumped up and down a few times before he could choke out an answer. Then he just thrust out a piece of parchment. "Too complicated to explain. Winky drew a chart."

Harry looked down at the sum total of their gossip network's efforts. All the Death Eaters who still used house elves in one way or another, which was nearly all of them except for Severus Snape, were listed. There were magical colored lines connecting up which ones had allied themselves to each other; which ones were privately at war with each other, too.

"It'll take a while to untangle this," Harry said, noting the number of turf wars at play within the Death Eaters. He knew that a house elf could never harm the family it was bonded to. But it would gladly consent to hurt an enemy of its master. Dobby had been emphatic in explaining the rules and regulations behind wizard-elf relationships.

Harry studied the diagram again and tried to begin piecing together the next attack. He saw that Bellatrix hated nearly everyone she was allied with, especially her own husband. That was fine, though, because Harry had special plans for her.

He tucked away the map and turned to look at the twins. They collected three jars of dragon blood and were starting on their fourth. Hagrid was distracted with his cooing toward the Norwegian Ridgeback. Charlie Weasley was just chuckling to himself as he saw his brothers and his half-giant friend both enjoying themselves enormously.

Harry bent down and picked up a rock from the ground. He transfigured it into a dead-looking owl.

"Oi, why do you have Errol, Harry," Ron shouted, beginning to wander over from his inspection of the lobsided battle.

"And why isn't he moving?" Ron shouted even louder. Harry rolled his eyes at his thick-headed, impassioned friend.

"Ron, the real Error is seven-and-a-half miles that way," Harry said, pointing to the northwest. In truth, the Burrow had never been under attack. Wormtail and his followers had put tracking charms on a number of the likely guests. The day before at the real wedding, Harry and his Committee of Marauders had lifted the charms and put them on themselves. The location they'd selected had been perfect, not even Wormtail had been aware he was in the wrong place.

Harry pulled a parchment out of his pants and handed it to Dobby. Then he lowered the owl replica into the elf's other hand.

"I need for you to place these somewhere special," Harry said. He knew that the elf already knew the next part of the plan. "Only she can find it, remember. Only her."

Dobby nodded his oversized head a few times and then popped out of view.

"Inviting an old friend over, Harry," George asked. He had a wicked gleam in his eye. He especially like the next part of this plan.

"An invitation she won't be able to ignore," Harry said.

Next: Bellatrix Embellished


	7. Bellatrix Embellished

A/N: I appreciate the reviews I've received for this story so far. Anyone have any idea what I've got planned for Voldemort? The answer is coming in a couple chapters, but I'd love to hear your thoughts and plots.

Bellatrix Embellished

Harry stooped down in the small Muggle graveyard just outside Godric's Hollow. It hadn't been easy to find. Nothing about this trip had been easy. The house that Harry had spent his first year of life in, and where his parents had died, was completely gone aside from some faint magical traces. The two graves in front of him were all that was left of his past life in Godric's Hollow.

He brushed away the rotted leaves and plucked out a couple of persistent weeds. He traced his fingers over the letters carved into the stones.

"Mother," he said as he felt the word Lily. "Father."

He had only the vaguest recollections of them, only their screams of pain as they'd died. It was the only 'gift' the Dementors had ever granted to Harry Potter.

"I don't know why I never thought to come here," Harry said. "I guess it never occurred to me in my first year at Hogwarts, everything was just too new. Then I started hearing about the Marauders. I was so proud to be a new Marauder, following in my dad's footsteps. Then I heard about the way you two, my mom and dad, didn't even like each other. I saw what you did to Snape, dad, I saw the hatred you had for him. I guess you couldn't have been a perfect person, but it still crushed me. The real problem was that no one would tell me the whole story, you know. I just got these crumbs, not even enough for a meal."

Harry wiped away a bit more of the dirt littering the graves.

"And now I have to finish this, Mom and Dad. The one who killed you has come back. You saw him that night in the cemetary, you helped me to escape from him even though you were just echoes. But my time is come. And I will end this. Tom Riddle will die for what he did to you."

As he stood up, Harry was ready to finish the struggle. Just this simple act had given him all the anger he needed to finish out the rest of his plans. He turned around and faced the darkness behind him. He was surprised that Bellatrix Lestrange had given him as much time as she had. She had surely been observing him since he walked into the graveyard.

"You can come out now, Bellatrix," Harry shouted.

A strained sigh whispered through the darkened graveyard. Then an annoyed Bellatrix Lestrange walked out from a copse of willows growing near the back portion of the grounds. "Potty wants to play," she hissed at him in her baby-talking voice.

She hucked a dead owl at Harry Potter's feet. "I found your note, boy. You told your friends not to come on your personal journey, but you didn't exclude me," she hissed.

The parchment in her hand lazily fell to the earth as she raised up her wand against the defenseless Harry Potter. But she raised it all the way into the air and shouted, "Morsmordre." The Dark Mark flew out of her wand, a deathly skull vomiting forth a snake, and lit up the night's sky.

Instantly, a deafening chorus of popping noises filled the night. In between the headstones stood more than forty Death Eaters.

With a calm voice, Harry spoke to the woman who had murdered his godfather Sirius. "Are you sure this is what you want, Bella?"

She lowered her wand and began the incantation she loved the most. "Cruc…" But she never got the chance to finish it.

Hundreds of fiery balls launched out of the darkness. Bella screamed and stopped casting her spell. All of the death eaters attempted to shield themselves from the incoming attacks, but none of them got the words out in time. Suddenly the entire graveyard smelled of harpy dung. Every Death Eater was covered in the mildly toxic stuff. As they recovered from the shock of not dying from flaming fireballs, the Death Eaters pivoted toward Harry Potter, their wands prepared to curse, stun, cut, and generally cause havoc.

The second volley of Harrowing Hellballs came flying. The men and women under their masks concentrated their hate and began to cast their revenge, but a deafening chorus of popping noises interrupted everything. The smell of harpy dung was even stronger. It was followed by a chorus of snapping noises, as every Death Eater was now immobilized. And every one of their wands had just been broken in half by a house elf. There were forty one Death Eaters, one Harry Potter, and three hundred twelve house elves now filling the small cemetery at Godric's Hollow.

Finally Harry Potter pulled out his wand from his pocket. And he also pulled out an elaborate looking bracelet. It radiated power, Dark power. He looked like he wanted to fit it onto Bellatrix's arm, but then he just set it down on his mother gravestone.

"This would be perfect for you, Bellatrix, but I have this weapon reserved for another," Harry said. "When I slip it onto Voldemort's dying wrist, it will pull him behind the veil. Just like how Sirius died. It's a one way portal I found hidden in the Black Mansion, you know, darker than dark materials all over there." His voice carried through the night. Carried all the way to the spy who had been assigned to watch and learn from what happened. The massacre that had occurred when Wormtail had attempted to destroy the Weasley wedding had scared the Dark Lord. When Bella had brought the letter forward and demanded to lead the mission to capture Harry Potter, the Dark Lord had consented but secretly assigned his most trusted agent to observe, and to intervene if it were necessary.

Severus Snape, never a particularly emotional type, was shocked beyond his own comprehension. Bella's team had been stopped before even a single curse had been fired off. By a team of house elves. Looking closer, Snape was even more concerned. All the elves he could see in the semidarkness wore tea towels imprinted with the crests of pureblood families, Death Eater families.

'Betrayal. From inside.' That was how the side of Light knew so much. That was intolerable. Servants betraying their masters. Well, Snape had a way to remedy the situation. He pointed his wand toward the deep part of the woods and sent a Fear Curse barreling into them.

The Dementors would follow the signal. They would take care of the situation.

Harry felt the Dementors moving through the forest before anyone else did. But he kept up with the plan. The others would take care of the Dementors.

"You're wondering about the house elves I'll bet, Bella. How they could be involved?"

He levitated the bound Death Eater and forced her to follow along behind him as he moved through the army of subdued Death Eaters.

"None of them will ever attack their masters, of course," Harry said. "But they'd jump at the chance to attack their master's enemies. These are all the elves of Death Eater families, save for Dobby, and there are so many petty hatreds inside this group it wasn't hard at all to find a dozen elves for every Death Eater who was still alive."

Bella and Severus were both shocked. Potter had destroyed all the previous Death Eater raids. But there'd been no news. And a publicity-seeking monster like Potter wouldn't be denied his just rewards, would he?

Severus knew he had to get this news back to the Dark Lord. But he couldn't just let that weapon remain in Potter's hands. It was a portal through to the veil. Instant death, but without even a body left behind.

Snape watched carefully as Harry moved away from his mother's grave and from the weapon he'd left there. He began moving through the darkness. He had to take that weapon to his master.

Harry continued moving through the rows of Death Eaters. "We'll start here," he said. He pointed his wand at a masked Death Eater and then transfigured him into a pygmy niffler. One of the house elves standing next to the animal grabbed onto the glitter-loving animal and vanished with it. Harry kept Bellatrix behind him as he moved through the rest of the graveyard, as he felt the coldness increase with the Dementors getting nearer.

In short order, Harry Potter transfigured six Death Eaters into a miniature griffin, a flightless Cornish pixie, a defanged, baby acromantula, a sedate Whomping Willow, the cutest three-headed puppy anyone has ever seen, and a purple and silver dragon that breathed out streams of perfume.

Harry screamed for a moment and nearly collapsed to the ground from the empty coldness the Dementors were sending his way. But then it was as if he couldn't feel them any longer. 'The plan is working,' Harry thought.

"Pretty, aren't they, Bellatrix," Harry asked as he continued to transfigure Death Eaters into harmless magical creatures. Her face lit up in anger and horror at what was happening. It wasn't right. It wasn't dignified for these fighters to be so dishonored.

"I'm sort of thinking of putting them in a petting zoo, Bellatrix. Maybe I'll call it Tom Riddle's Magical Menagerie. 'Made from Real Death Eaters' for a slogan. Or maybe not, might scare the kiddies off. I wonder what I should make you into. Maybe a Crumple-Horned Snorkack? Or a Nargle?"

A series of ethereal screams filled the silence of the graveyard. Harry had expected something like this, but had never believed it could sound so awful, so tortured. But the Dementors were feeling utter pain at the moment and their wails would never stop. Only the casting of numerous silencing charms by the other Marauders left Harry free to continue his game with Bellatrix.

"The Dementors won't be coming for you, I'm afraid."

Harry pulled a small device out of his pocket. He tapped his wand to it and then Bella's face lit up like she'd never felt so happy in her life.

"Harbingers of Happiness, they're called. Just copy a happy thought and stuff it right in. Works better than a Patronus to be frank. Those Dementors have never felt pain until now. They're corralled up in a pen made of these. I have no idea if those unnatural creatures have minds or can go insane, Bella, but I intend to find out."

Harry touched the Harbinger with his wand and all the happiness flooded out of Bella's face. It had been difficult for the Committee of Marauders to find sufficiently happy memories to stuff in the Harbingers. Harry had used his joy at discovering he had a godfather, his hopes for leaving the Dursleys and living with Sirius, back when he was a naïve third year. Fred had used a memory of the first time he'd blown off his eyebrows when making a joke. George had donated the time he'd first managed to turn Percy's pet Scabbers a violent shade of pink. Hermione, predictably, had provided the moment when she'd received her Head Girl badge. McGonagall had still sent them out even if the school had been ordered closed for the foreseeable future.

Harry walked around the graveyard and completed the transfigurations. Then he nodded to the remaining house elves. Only he and Bellatrix Lestrange remains. He levitated her immobile body twenty meters away from her and then released her. He pulled her wand out of his robes, the only Deather Eater wand that hadn't been snapped this evening. With a casual toss, he sent the wand flying back to Bellatrix. She was so stunned, thinking it was a trick, she let the wand hit the ground before she bent over, examined it, and then picked it up. She looked utterly confused, totally insane still but utterly confused.

"You weren't there, Bellatrix, when Voldemort came back. You were still in Azkaban, but Voldemort" Bella hissed at the words "Voldemort, he decided that we ought to duel. I escaped because I knew nothing then, but I think I'm ready to test my mettle now. So, you and I will now duel, Bellatrix Lestrange. To the death."

Bella's cruel face lit up in pleasure. She was the wizarding world's second finest duelist behind only the Dark Lord himself. She would destroy this creature standing in front of her.

"What are the rules, Potty," she crowed.

"There are none."

Bella smiled and without opening her mouth she began casting spells at the boy. She would enjoy causing him severe pain before she killed him.

Potter was on the ground, rolling to miss the painful curses she was fling at him. He hadn't sent anything back her way. But he was lithe and agile. Nothing came close to hitting him.

The Potter brat stood up and she threw another three curses that weren't even close to hitting him.

Then the air next to the Potter kid changed and a head appeared out of nowhere. Someone had been under an invisibility cloak, a thin, sickly man, poorly dressed. It was that half-breed Lupin. Bella flung half a dozen curses at him too.

Potter still hadn't sent a single curse her way. Lupin had only sent ridiculous spells, Jelly-Legs Jinxes and the like. Didn't they know they were in this for their lives?

"Remus is my honorary godfather, Bella," Harry said. "You killed off my original one. So we thought it fair that we both be here when you died tonight."

The words were out of her mouth before she could even concentrate her hate to ensure the spell was successful. "Avada Kedavra."

Before the green light arced from her wand, Remus Lupin threw something into the air. It looked rather like a cup with a badger on it.

Bellatrix Lestrange found out exactly what it was when her Killing Curse struck the Horcrux. The stunning wave knocked everyone down, but not Severus Snape as he'd completed his mission several minutes earlier and disapparated away. Then Bella's hands and arms blackened and withered. She tried to scream in pain but nothing came out of her mouth. Instead, one of the curses swirling around her took the opportunity to leap inside her and begin incinerating her body from the inside out. Within a very few seconds, her entire body was a heap of cinders.

Remus walked over to the dead woman and kicked the cinders. While they'd held the shape of Bellatrix Lestrange, with that bit of force the whole demonic portrait collapsed. Remus turned back to his honorary godson with a no-longer calm face. His imperturbable face now looked like he was ready to hyperventilate.

"Why didn't you tell me about this, Harry?" Remus wanted answers. He wanted to know why Harry had risked his neck like this. With no adults around, with no Order support. He'd been summoned here only thirty minutes earlier by a smiling Harry Potter. There had been no warning about a Death Eater attack on this scale. Remus had been shoved under the invisibility cloak and told to wait and watch. So he had, with mounting fear the entire time.

"Would you have let me come?"

Remus didn't say anything for a few moments.

"Would you have tried to stop me? Told someone in the Order?"

Eventually Remus nodded.

"That's why I couldn't tell you, Remus. I wanted you to have your vengeance for Sirius, for everything that's happened. But I couldn't risk you trying to stop me." Harry began walking away from the scene of the battle and toward the forest. Remus had trouble keeping up with Harry's furious pace.

"There's a lot more," Harry continued. "We've captured or killed nearly all of Voldemort's Death Eaters. The evil werewolves are dead, including Greyback, the one who attacked you when you were a child, Remus. The giants are dead. And the Dementors," Harry began pointing deeper into the forest, "seem to be neutralized, as well."

When the pair walked into the next clearing, they saw a frightening sight. More than a hundred Dementors were penned up in a space smaller than a Gryffindor dorm room. They were clawing at each other, trying to escape from the Harbingers of Happiness. They were in fact corralled and imprisoned. What no one in the group had expected was that the Dementors seemed to be steaming. From their cloaked bodies black smoke spiraled up into the air.

"Have a happy memory you want to add, Remus," Harry asked.

Remus smiled and pulled out a memory. Harry shoved it inside a Harbinger and threw it toward where all the others were positioned.

The black smoke rising from each of the creatures seemed to become just a bit thicker.

"It's going to kill them," Ron said, finally noticing that Harry and Remus had arrived.

"Can't they take a joke," Fred asked.

"This is the first time I've ever heard of this happening," Remus said. "Patronus Shields force them away, but I've never seen them smoke."

"My thinking," George began, "which is far superior to my brother's, is that the Patronus would do this too if the Dementors couldn't flee. But they can't move away from the shields we've erected."

Harry watched the entire scene for a few moments longer. Then realized he didn't have time to stare at Dementors dying.

"The spy took he bait," Harry said. "The 'weapon' is gone."

Hermione just started laughing. "No one gets the joke."

Remus was the only one who looked confused. Harry took just a second to bring his honorary godfather up-to-speed about the Committee of Marauders, about finding Sirius' portrait (Remus was very surprised at that), and about all they'd done in the last three weeks.

"Destroying the Death Eaters in three weeks? I'd never have thought it possible."

George grumped, mostly under his breathe. "Nothing happens at Dumbledore speed."

Remus didn't hear it. He just looked to Harry. "So what is this weapon?"

Harry smiled. "Well, you know I'm a Parselmouth…"

Next Up: Nagini the Noxious; Snape Severed


	8. Nagini the Noxious

A/N: I appreciate the reviews I've received for this story so far. I hope people enjoyed Remus and Harry taking revenge on Bellatrix. She might be the most disturbing villain JKR has created. I hope I did her demise justice. Enjoy what happens to Voldemort and the other Death Eaters in this chapter.

Nagini the Noxious; Malleus Maleficarum

The moment Severus Snape touched the bracelet in the Godric's Hollows graveyard his own thoughts were flooded out by what the bracelet compelled him to do. 'Find Nagini. Find Nagini. Find Nagini.' The simple commandment was his only thought now.

He apparated back outside the wards set around Riddle Manor. Snape set to looking through the grounds. Had he been able to wield his own thoughts, Snape might have considered it odd that his Master who despised all things Muggle had chosen to make an abandoned Muggle home his seat of power. But Snape never did have that thought. He just wasn't smart enough.

He searched the grounds for Voldemort's familiar, the massive, wickedly mean snake Nagini. Then he began to search the ground floor of the Manor itself. Most of the rooms were deserted completely. A few had a Death Eater attempting to sleep off a Cruciatus Cruse. The mighty strength of 200 Death Eaters was now reduced to less than 15.

Snape circled the rooms on the second floor. In the last room he looked in, in the darkest corner, Snape's searching eyes found his prize. 'Nagini. Find Nagini.'

As the snake unfurled to its full length and came out of the shadows, the whispers from the bracelet changed. 'Put the bracelet on Nagini. Put the bracelet on Nagini.'

Snape dropped to his knees just in front of the massive serpent. He reached out with his wand hand to grab the snake. But Nagini was faster. She struck at Snape's hand and embedded her fangs deep inside him. Her Master would be mad, but he wouldn't hurt her. She was only protecting herself from the man with the evil aura.

Severus Snape didn't feel the pain. He only recognized that his wand hand was immbolized. With his opposite hand, he picked up the bracelet and fumbled through the opening of it. He slipped it onto the serpent's body and then closed it. When he pulled his hand away, all the pain that had been kept from him rushed into his mind.

Not to mention the deadly venom that was racing through his body. Basilisks were the most deadly of magical serpents, but a black mambo gorgon, which Nagini is, was just only slightly less poisonous. Arthur Weasley had felt Nagini's teeth on him when he'd been guarding the Department of Mysteries and his wounds hadn't healed for many day even after the venom had been removed.

Unfortunately for Severus Snape, no one would be looking for him in the next few seconds to help save his life. The snake was already moving at a high rate of speed through the second floor.

The bracelet was calling to her. 'Nagini, kill. Bite, strike, kill.' The words from the bracelet wrapped tightly around her body were in perfect Parseltongue and she had no skills of avoiding the compulsion they caused.

The Death Eaters sleeping off the effects of the Cruciatus Curse were the easiest for her to kill. None of them put up a struggle at all. The few on the first floor were also easy prey. When Nagini hit the grounds around the Riddle Manor, that's where she encountered more challenging projects, humans actually worth her skill and cunning.

One. Two. Three. The first three people outside were down on the ground, writhing in pain from the venom working its way through them.

Death Eaters knew that she was attacking them, but they feared for their lives if they retaliated against her. Voldemort himself had prescribed the punishment for anyone harming Nagini in the slightest way. "I will use the old fashioned Muggle ways," he'd said in a harsh whisper. "I will pound nails into your hands and leave you strapped to a board. I will bury spider's eggs near your lungs and snake eggs just underneath your stomach. You will feel them as they hatch and begin to devour you from the inside out." Obviously no one relished seeing if Voldemort could actually pull off such a punishment.

So the Death Eaters ran around the outside trying to avoid being bitten by Nagini. But they weren't doing a very good job of it.

She would have succeeded in killing all the Death Eaters present had Lucius Malfoy, Voldemort's second-in-command, not apparated in at that specific moment. He took one look at the situation, a ruddy great snake killing the men he'd trained up, and said, 'To hell with Voldemort's commandments.'

He pulled out his wand, sighted the massive snake, and clearly and calmly said, "Avada Kedavra." The killing curse destroyed Nagini quickly, but the Horcrux inside her fought back.

A vicious stumbling curse knocked Lucius off his feet. And then his wand hand blackened and began to wither away.

Harry Potter apparated onto the grounds of Riddle Manor to see the rest of what happened to Lucius Malfoy. He took no pleasure in it, but was glad that the world had one less evil person standing.

Lucius Malfoy's body began to desiccate as the water inside him was magically expelled. Within the span of two minutes, the living Malfoy became a pile of hair, dust, and lingering hatred lying on the dirty earth.

That was the moment that the bellow shattered the silence of the evening. Tom Riddle, the one who wanted to be known as Lord Voldemort, had evidently discovered that the last of his Death Eaters were gone.

When the patricidal wizard stormed outside of his father's wreck of a mansion, Voldemort saw the dead Nagini. He also saw Harry Potter standing close by. Instantly all his years of plotting and planning flew out of his mind.

Two of his Horcruxes were gone. The diary and his familiar. Voldemort would create a new one this minute after he killed Harry Potter.

He leveled his wand at the wisp of a wizard and put all the hatred he had into the Killing Curse. "Avada Kedavra."

The green light arced into the darkness and sped toward Harry Potter. As the light was about to extinguish Harry Potter's life, someone or something appeared in front of him. Almost like a shield, Voldemort couldn't tell what it was until the curse touched it.

A silver mirror made for a vane woman. Rowena Ravenclaw, the most intellectually snobby and aesthetically critical of the original founders of Hogwarts, had loved this mirror above all her other possessions. So of course Tom Riddle had used it to hide a withered portion of his soul. A beautiful thing to cover up the ugly soul of an insane wizard.

The curse shattered the glass and cut through the Horcrux like a hungry Weasley through a loaf of pumpkin bread. But the Horcrux recognized that the one who created it had been the one to kill it. The curses flew out of the broken mirror and surrounded Voldemort but did not attack him. His arm didn't wither. His bones didn't break. But the curses whipped around him without a place to go. Voldemort had never expected or planned for what would happen if he destroyed one of his own Horcruxes.

But Harry Potter had given it a good deal of thought. He had seen what happened to Wormtail and what happened to Bellatrix earlier that evening. He'd caught the last of what happened to Lucius. Harry had planned for something to happen. The swirling, raging curses hovering about Tom Riddle were good enough.

Harry brought his wand up, focused on his enemy, and steeled himself to utter one of the simplest and oldest spells ever discovered. Of course, it was also potentially the trickiest curse ever created. It wasn't taught in practical courses, but was mentioned in upper level History of Magic courses after severe cautions about ever attempting it. The curse was known as the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Evil Doers. It was more popularly known as the Suicide Curse.

"Malleus Maleficarum." At first nothing seemed to happen, but then Harry was encircled in a gray glow. The curses surrounding Voldemort dissipated and he was surrounded in a brilliant white glow.

The judging had begun. Voldemort't magic and Harry Potter's life were now being judged.

The Malleus Maleficarum was the first and most powerful of the judgment spells, designed to strip the magic of any other wizard who had turned completely evil. Of course, like with all powerful spells it had one tiny, little catch. If the spell thought that its subject wasn't actually completely evil then it did something in return to the caster. In fact, it killed the person who cast it. Hence the reason it was rarely used nowadays and usually only by people who were excessively unhappy. The suicidal users just attempted to judge purely good magical animals, like unicorns. They're dead bodies showed all the signed of a failed judgment.

No one had ever thought to cast the spell on Voldemort before. No one wanted to just strip him of his magic. People wanted to kill him. But Harry Potter was working off a plan. He wanted something spectacular.

The white glow around Voldemort pulsed and darkened. The grayish glow around Harry grew lighter and lighter. Ten minutes after he cast the spell Harry Potter was still alive and the aura was nearly gone. The version around Voldemort was indistinguishable from the dark night surrounding them.

Then suddenly the magic decided. A great white flash filled the night sky. Voldemort's magic was destroyed.

Harry Potter was still alive.

There was no way to tell what would happen without actually casting the spell. Even the most skilled judges in the medieval period would only be able to use the spell four or five times against truly evil wizards before the spell would end their own lives.

Tom Riddle, no longer the snake-faced Voldemort, crumpled to the ground. His Horcruxes, save the fragment of soul still residing in his own body, were all destroyed. He now looked somewhat like the handsome man his father had been. But this Tom Riddle had years of hatred and killing worn into his skin.

Harry walked over to Tom Riddle and hauled the frail-looking man to his feet. Without his magic Riddle was barely able to stand on his own.

Without saying a word, Harry disapparated, taking Tom Riddle with him. He wanted something spectacular, something the whole world could see. He wanted to give Tom Riddle one choice, one last choice.

Next Up: Tom Riddle's Choice


	9. Tom Riddle

A/N: I appreciate the reviews I've received for this story so far.

Tom Riddle's Choice

Harry Potter looked down at the examination paper he was answering for his Defense Against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T.s. Taking the test had been something of an embarrassment for him. Like question number five: "Describe the ways in which Harrowing Hellballs may be used to disarm opponents." Or question twenty-seven: "Compare and contrast Harry Potter's defeat of Voldemort with Albus Dumbledore's defeat of the Dark Wizard Grindelwald. Which was funnier?" Or the bonus 'questions' at the bottom of the page: "Receive one hundred additional points for proving that you have defeated a dark wizard, a werewolf, or a drug-addled harpy carrying a pitchfork. Receive ten additional points for each dark object, particularly a horcrux, you have been responsible for destroying. Receive fifty additional points for successfully casting the Malleus Maleficarum judgment spell."

See? Embarrassing.

The transfiguration N.E.W.T. had been just as bad. "Receive ten additional points for each Death Eater you transfigured into a harmless magical creature." Or the History of Magic N.E.W.T.: "9. Explain how Harry Potter's use of house elves in his war against Voldemort will transform human-elf relations?" Or Divination: "Receive two hundred bonus points if you have fulfilled a prophecy concerning you." Or Charms: "17. Describe the use of a Compulsion Charm when it is combined with veela blood (commercially available as a Singing Siren). Bonus points for explaining how to get the charm to work in multiple languages, especially Parseltongue."

Harry turned back to the question he was answering on his DADA exam, number thirty-seven. "Explain what happened in the Ministry of Magic when Harry Potter appeared there with Lord Voldemort."

That was an easy one.

The first thing Harry Potter heard when he apparated into the Ministry of Magic was, "Harry, your scar is gone." It wasn't, 'why are you clutching some middle-aged wizard?' It wasn't, 'why do you look like you're half insane?' No, everything was about his scar. Harry shot a disgruntled look over to Hagrid and shrugged his answer to the question.

But Harry knew. Tom Riddle's magic was dead. The magic that gave him his curse scar was gone. Harry Potter's most distinctive feature was gone. He almost felt normal. Almost. Except for the fact that he was still clutching Tom Riddle.

The Weasleys were all here, including Arthur and Molly. Hermione and Remus and Hagrid, too. People who were standing in the atrium of the Ministry were looking over to where Harry Potter was standing as well. He'd arranged for an audience, of sort.

Harry nodded to Fred Weasley. The twin then summoned the reporters who'd been interested in covering the Committee of Marauder's pranks. George Weasley started conjuring chairs so that dozens of people could witness the impromptu trial Harry was planning.

Harry dropped Tom Riddle to the floor. He was of no danger now. He bent down and picked up the man's wand. It had been one of the few that the house elves hadn't been able to snatch. Harry pocketed it as a trophy of war.

Harry then conjured up a chair and levitated Tom Riddle into it. He pointed his wand at the newly-minted Muggle and said, "Ennervate."

The middle aged man woke up and looked confused for just a second. Then his thoughts returned to him. He looked mad enough to blow up a building. But, of course, without magic he couldn't have done more than stomp on an ant.

Still, Tom Riddle pointed his finger at Harry Potter and said, "Avada Kedavra."

And nothing happened. Except that Fred and George Weasley began to laugh. Then more of the crowd joined in. Finally even the reporters and junior ministers who'd stopped to look on were laughing.

"Yes," Harry said to the assembled spectators, "Tom Riddle is now a Muggle…"

The crowd's laughter continued in some quarters, but turned to surprise and shock in others. "A Muggle," the whispers started. "No dark magic."

"…lower than a squib, reduced to living off the world as it is. No wand, no special powers. The orphan is once again orphaned."

At that, Tom Riddle started to scream. But no one fell to their knees. No one begged him for forgiveness.

"I want everyone to know what I've done to defeat the most evil dark wizard Britain has seen." The large, full atrium fell silent at Harry's words. "Tom and his followers were masters of the wand and I was a tiny scrap of a boy. I looked elsewhere for how to defeat him. Instead, I have used all of Tom Riddle's weaknesses against him. He hated Muggles so I used Muggle ideas on him. He hated house elves and other creatures, so I used them too. He hated laughter so I used pranks and jokes against him. He believed only in the Dark Arts and in the darkest kind of artifacts, so I discovered all of them and used them against his most loyal Death Eaters. In fact, against Tom Riddle here, I have cast only a single spell in the battle."

The people present started chattering against. They obviously didn't believe him. But in time, they would.

"Since I defeated and captured this one-time Dark Wizard, I am taking it upon myself to decide his fate. And I've decided to allow Tom Riddle here to select from two choices." The crowd was now decidedly a bit more nervous. Everyone aside from Fred and George, of course, as they knew very well what Harry had always had planned. In fact, they'd worked with Harry to get all the details of his speech down just right. It needed to be interesting and convincing for the audience, but it needed to be perfect for its sole intended listener: Tom Riddle.

"The first choice that Tom may choose is to tend to a flock of magical animals I've accumulated." Harry snapped his fingers and more than a hundred house elves filled the outer perimeter of the room. There were fangless acromantulas and ridiculous looking griffins and all sorts of cuddly animals being held and restrained by the house elves.

"I call my collection Tom Riddle's Magical Menagerie in honor of the fact that Death Eaters can be cute, cuddly, and useful." Harry's eyes turned specifically to a pure white ferret that one of the house elves was clutching especially tightly. The transfiguration had been simple to turn a half-starved Draco Malfoy into a ferret. The boy hadn't been able to look after himself after the Malfoy house elves had started doing serious pranking for the HELP Team. Draco hadn't been able to feed himself or wash his clothing or even seek out help. House elves had always done those things for him. A highly amused Dobby had presented Harry with Draco just two days earlier. Harry was glad to add the ferret to his collection.

Tom Riddle stood up and looked around at his former supporters. He didn't want to believe what Harry Potter was saying. But he also recognized the elves as coming from Death Eater households. They had truly turned against their masters it seemed.

"I plan to open up a small farm near Hogsmeade so that children can come and see these less harmful versions of dangerous creatures." That particular idea had come from Hagrid. But Hagrid had wanted the acromantulas to have fangs, the hippogryphs to have claws, and the snakes to have venom. He'd also wanted them to live with him in his small hut at Hogwarts. Harry had thought up the alternative.

"Tom would be their caretaker, if he chose that path, for the rest of his natural life. Or," Harry said, "there is the more risky option."

Tom Riddle, the defeated evil wizard, finally heard something of interest. A Muggle life, a life of tending to animals, even animals that were his former supporters, seemed the cruelest thing ever conceived. But a risky option. That was some cause for hope.

"I could offer Tom Riddle immortality." The crowd burst into angry muttering. "His status as a Muggle wouldn't change. He would forever be without magic. But if he accepted this second option, he would have the ability to live forever if he followed certain laws, certain principles. He would be as free as he wanted to be, provided he followed the established laws."

For a man who'd selected a name that meant 'flight from death,' this second option, even with its Muggle attributes, sounded pretty good.

But Tom Riddle didn't get a chance to ask anything. Harry broke through the circles of people and walked out to one of the house elves, the one holding the tetchy little ferret. Then he walked back toward Fred and George Weasley. With a solemn gesture, Fred placed a gleaming red stone into Harry's gloved hand.

Harry walked back over to Tom Riddle and was glad that he was wearing gloves. The stupid Malfoy ferret was attempting to gnaw Harry's fingers off. And the stone. Well, it was better he didn't touch the stone.

"So, Tom," Harry said, looking at the man who had tried to kill him too many times to count, "which will it be? Cleaning up ferret dung? Or this?" Harry held out the red stone in his hand.

Tom's greedy eyes recognized it. A Philosopher's Stone.

"I thought it was destroyed," Tom Riddle said.

"Me and my friends made this," Harry said. "It wasn't that hard, to tell you the truth."

Tom hissed in anger. But he found he could no longer speak Parseltongue. His hissing was just hissing now.

"The Elxir of Life would give me immortality. How do I know that you will let me keep the stone, Harry Potter?"

"If you accept it, then I will never touch this stone again, Tom."

Tom didn't have time to make any speeches or baffle anyone with his brilliance before his hand shot out and grabbed the red stone. But, of course, this was the best prank that Harry had planned. The red stone looked very like a Philosopher's Stone and Harry had neither confirmed or denied what it was. Tom Riddle had merely assumed.

When Tom's hand touched the stone, his body immediately transfigured into a tea cup. Tall and thin, black aside from green swirls the color of the Avada Kedavra. Along the top and bottom of the cup were tiny images of the people Voldemort had killed, his own parents and grandparents, Harry's parents, and so many others.

The problem with Voldemort turning into a teacup like he had was that the teacup was now hovering for a brief fraction of a second in midair. When Fred and George had transfigured Harry's aunt, uncle, and cousin, all three of them had been sitting on a sofa or a chair. Their teacups hadn't fallen far nor had they been damaged.

Tom Riddle, now in mortal, teacup form, fell to the ground and shattered into hundreds of shards on the hard stone floor. A wail erupted from the fragments as the final Horcrux, the very last piece of soul inside Tom Riddle's body, died. The prophecy was complete.

"Ahh, Tom, you have just broken a law. The law of gravity."

For the next three hours Harry Potter, flanked by George and Fred Weasley, had answered questions from reporters, from the public, and finally, once the atrium was cleared, from the Ministry. No one could believe that Voldemort had been defeated in quite that way. The shards were still all over the floor. So was the fake 'Philosopher's Stone.'

When Harry was left to himself in the very early morning hours, he took one look at the shards and said "Reparo." Instantly the tea cup, sans one evil soul, was repaired and sitting in his hand.

Harry never told anyone what happened to those shards. No one ever seemed to ask, either. It was probably safer that way. In point of fact, Harry set Tom Riddle's teacup next to the ones he had for Petunia, Vernon, and Dudders. Whenever he moved or went on a trip, he always packed those cups and took them. He never wanted to forget the four people who had most impacted his life for the worse. He never wanted to forget what they'd done… because Harry never wanted to be anything like them.

Harry finished his answer to the question and then moved on to the last group of questions. There was still the practical examination in the afternoon, but Harry didn't think he'd have any problems.

"How can transfiguration be used in a combat situation," Harry muttered to himself. He rolled his eyes and then started to write his answer. The test was really embarrassing.

Next Up: A Happy Harry


	10. A Happy Harry

A/N: This is the final chapter. I've had it ready for some time, but this is my first chance to upload it (the interface for uploading stories seems to have been broken for a few days). Thank you to everyone who reviewed my story along the way. If anyone would care to comment, I'd like to know what your favorite part of the story was. (I think mine is Umbridge chasing Fudge around the Ministry of Magic.)

A Happy Harry

Five years passed very quickly for Harry Potter after he graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Because of the embarrassing way that the N.E.W.T.s had been designed in his seventh year of schooling, Harry received an Outstanding in each subject he sat, even Divination about which he still understood nothing.

He had been forced to accept the Order of Merlin, First Class, and had been forced into giving a speech. He'd made Sirius' portrait write it for him. Harry hadn't been asked to give many more speeches after that. But Harry had actually enjoyed the experience.

Now, he was laying on a sofa in his Thinking Room in 12 Grimmauld Place. The formerly run-down was actually habitable now, but it hadn't been an easy task. Harry could hear a variety of noises outside his door, but the people who lived with him knew to respect his hour a night in the room. So far no one else had yet been inside it, not even a house elf.

The portrait of Sirius was situated on a reading desk. Sirius seemed to enjoy Harry's fan mail and the other offers people sent him. He also enjoyed the Daily Prophet and the annual issue of Witch Weekly that proclaimed its picks for the most eligible wizard around. Harry had won for the past five years with increasingly ridiculous articles accompanying the photographs they published.

"Bah," Sirius said. "The Quidditch Association sent you another offer to coach a team."

"I guess they've decided I'll never accept an offer to be a seeker for them," Harry said.

Sirius waited for the magical desk to present the next letter to him. He was muttering about Quidditch quite loudly. He'd been a forceful advocate for Harry accepting a position with one of the Quidditch teams. 'The youngest Seeker in a century at Hogwarts,' however, had not washed as a valid rationale.

When there was no scathing comment forthcoming from Sirius, Harry looked over at the magical portrait. Sirius was quite annoyed.

"What," Harry asked. "You know I love flying. I love to watch Quidditch played. But if I were out there, people wouldn't be watching me play. They'd be watching Happy-Potter-He-Who-Won."

Years of being in the brightest light of media speculation had not tamed Harry's shyness at all. If anything, Harry was even more reserved about the facts of his life now.

"Your father would have loved to see you flying…"

"I know, Sirius. I still fly every day, like I said. I love it. But it wouldn't be fun if people were watching me just because I was a… I don't know, a freak. Just because of my fame."

Sirius huffed. He'd lost this argument hundreds of times already, but what could he do? He didn't have arms, legs, or anything else to compel his godson into action.

"Sirius, I know you'd have loved it, but I've had women follow me into the gents, swig back a conception potion, and attempt to maul me right there and then. People aren't normal when I'm around."

Sirius laughed. "It's good that people think you're so virile."

Harry just looked miserable. "Witch Weekly lays the blame for half of all England's illegitimate births at my loins."

"I know," Sirius said. "I'm a subscriber. I have to hear about what you do outside this room from the papers. Because you won't tell me."

"Read the rest of the mail. Anything else interesting?"

"The Aurors want you."

Harry rolled his eyes. "They send four letters a year. Next."

"The Ministry's offering you a seat on the Wizengamot again."

Harry took a second to consider what Sirius said. "Wonder who just retired. They always seem to offer me whatever open seats they have."

"You interested?"

"Maybe when I'm an old, boring, nosy wizard," Harry said. "Maybe they'll accept a magical painting. I've got just the candidate. Thinks he knows everything and is never wrong."

Sirius snorted.

"The Daily Prophet wants an interview."

"On what subject," Harry asked.

"Somehow they seem to think you're a humanitarian of sorts. Funding orphanages and the like."

"Well, damn," Harry said. "That was all supposed to be anonymous."

Sirius snorted again. "The Evans Trust. The Black Foundation. Even I can see through those, Harry. And with the amount of money you give out, there aren't many choices for who could be funding it."

Harry was reputed to be one of the richest wizards around, but no one really knew. The goblins weren't saying a word. Harry and the Committee of Marauders still had four Gringotts vaults under the Fidelius Charm and the goblins weren't risking making Harry angry any time soon. Who knew what other things Harry could come up with?

It was an open secret who was involved with the Committee of Marauders now. Harry's creation of a small petting zoo filled with transfigured Death Eaters had seen to that. When he was a seventh year student at Hogwarts, Harry had rented out a small farm near Hogsmeade and had left the transfigured animals there as a petting zoo. He hadn't called it anything as tacky as Tom Riddle's Magical Menagerie, but he'd been tempted.

It was only after negotiating stiff sentences for all of the Death Eaters that Harry transfigured them back into their human forms and turned them over to the Ministry. The Ministry had agreed that no pardons would be forthcoming. All of them went to Azkaban and the legend of the Committee of Marauders received a new tall tale.

"Maybe I should transfigure some reporters," Harry said, "and open another petting zoo…"

"But who would go to see a place filled with slimy toads, ugly beetles, and blood-sucking bats?"

Harry laughed. Sirius had done a good job summing up his view of the journalistic profession.

"You have three letters requesting that you accept apprentices in various disciplines," Sirius continued.

"But I don't have my Mastery in any discipline. How could I take on an apprentice?"

"Well," Sirius decided, "you're a master prankster. You're a one-third owner in the most successful wizard joke shop in Britain. That's gotta count for something."

Harry rolled his eyes and returned to staring at the ceiling in the room.

"No one wants an apprenticeship in pranking," Harry said. "The best ones are all self-taught, right, Padfoot?"

Sirius had to laugh at that. The idea of studying pranking did seem a bit off.

"Have you decided what you're doing for Halloween yet, Harry?"

"The usual," Harry said. As if 'the usual' were nothing special. Halloween was the one time per year when Harry opened his home, actually Sirius' family home, to any and all who wanted to come. He staged the grandest haunted house in the entirety of the wizarding world and more than three thousand witches, wizards, and children had come to the last one he'd put on.

"Well, can I be the portrait on the wall this year?" The portrait was the master of ceremonies. It was a great honor among portraits to be selected. Some of them in Hogwarts started lobbying months in advance.

Harry tipped his head up and looked at Sirius. "You? Not your half-insane mother?"

"I can channel the Black madness, Harry. I shout out inappropriate things at the top of my lungs, too." Here Sirius began to look more delusional and terrifying. "You blasphemers. I'll hex you within an inch of your lives. I know you've come to steal the Black family heirlooms." Then Sirius just started to laugh. "But I just want to help scare the children."

As much of a hound dog as Sirius was, and as many illegitimate children as he had sired, Sirius really was fond of small children. So long as they weren't exactly his.

"Fine then, Sirius. Consider yourself hired. We'll put you in the main hall. We'll have the usual opening: the hall of ambushes, just like we did for the Death Eaters with their own wands. But we just use fun jinxes, nothing dangerous. Then downstairs we'll have a half dozen ghosts and one well-mannered ghoul. First floor we have the vampires and the silenced banshees. Second floor is for the poltergeists and boggarts. The third floor, well, that's special this year. I managed to get a sphinx and a blind basilisk. Should be fun for the kiddies. Then there's the maze out in the back yard."

"Like the Tri-Wizard Tournament?"

"Yes, like the ruddy Tri-Wizard Tournament. Constantine and Elisabeta insisted on it again. With a troll in the middle and a small lake to swim across and, well, I don't want to spoil the rest of the surprises. We'll just magically enlarge all of the rooms and the backyard. It's what Constantine and Elisabeta want."

"And you can't go against them, right?"

Harry looked confused for a moment. "Well, of course not, Sirius, they're my children."

"Harry, you have nine children now. How in the world do you listen to all of them all of the time?"

Harry finally sat up on the sofa and looked at the portrait. "Sirius, it's not hard to listen to nine people and then decide what's most important to them. Before I was out of Hogwarts I had hundreds of different voices screaming at me all the time. Just having nine, plus you, Remus, and a few others, is quite a relaxing thing, actually."

"I will never understand why you adopted all those orphans, Harry."

Harry rolled his eyes. Sirius was so concerned about family, pureblooded family. He'd never understand Harry's need to save others, or his desire for a happy family, or his love for having lots of people around him most of the time. If he had a pack of people who needed care, then that meant Harry could do the caring. He was doing the fussing now.

"They weren't all orphans, Sirius. And some of them have 50 Black family blood in them, your blood, if the genealogical parchments are correct. Didn't anyone teach you contraceptive spells?"

Sirius muttered something about spells altering the pleasure he'd received from the act. Harry rolled his eyes. His godfather was a Marauder, but it really was better he was just a portrait now. Without any procreative powers.

"I had to teach Ron a few after his first near accident," Harry said. "That's when Hermione dropped him, you know. The git started denying the pregnancy could be his, worrying more about what his mother would say. When it turned out that the baby hadn't lived, Hermione never spoke to him again. He's on his second wife now, no kids thankfully, but he'll be moving on to his third wife soon enough, if his wandering eyes are any indication."

"Maybe I should talk with the boy," Sirius said. His thoughts always turned to other men. Harry thought of his friend Hermione. She was so involved in her work at the ministry. Then she still went out on weekends trying to speak to pureblood families about their house elves. At least she had the good sense to prank the ones who didn't bother listening to her.

Harry saw that Sirius was still waggling his eyebrows about what advice he'd give to Ron. "You'd just give him dirty ideas," Harry shot back.

"Well, there was this time in Majorca when I was introduced to the Swedish Witch's Volleyball Association. Forty-seven very beautiful, very willing witches. Very flexible, you know, almost like gymnasts."

Harry shuddered a bit. His godfather was too old, and too dead, to be talking about sex like that.

"Or that time when I was trapped in a spooky hotel with the Nymphomaniacs Anonymous Convention. I'll admit that that did really wear me down. I mean, we were stuck there for nearly four days. We ran out of water first, before we ran out of chocolate sauce and marmite. That kind of work is thirsty business, you know…"

"Sirius, is this your way of getting me to change the subject to something you really want to talk about," Harry asked. Sirius and his sexcapades usually got Harry's defenses down. Then Sirius could zip in and ask for something or pry some unpleasant information out of Harry.

"Well, I was going to ask how your last date went, Harry."

Harry groaned and flopped backwards on the sofa.

"Another one. A Harry hunter, a notch seeker. I've not had more than a first date with a single woman in four years. Four years, Sirius. They're all a little bit different, but it all boils down the same way. They want the Boy-Who-Lived. They want his child and his reputation and his wealth. I haven't even told any of them about my kids. Nor that I prefer to run around my house in a dressing gown until noon on the weekends. Nor all the other things that make me human and vulnerable, rather than the Boy-Who-Lived."

"Rough luck, mate."

"I guess," Harry said. "But, I don't know that I ever needed to have a cloying woman hanging on me to be happy. I have my official role of prank tester at Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. And I have my job as a dad and trainer of future Marauders. That's all I ever needed. That and some anonymity."

"Simple, aren't you? You could have the whole world."

Harry finally sat up again. "I do, Sirius. I have the world I want."

He turned and walked to the edge of the room. His hour in the Thinking Room was over. "I'll be back tomorrow, Sirius. See if you can think anything up for the haunted house for Halloween. I'll let you put your touch on it, too."

Sirius laughed and then went quiet. He was already plotting.

Harry opened the door to his private study and stepped into the hall. As he did so, a small container of a potion fell on his head. Suddenly, Harry's unruly hair turned into a swarming mop of unruly snakes.

"The Medusa Potion. I say, getting rusty, kids," Harry shouted out. They'd dumped this formulation on him two months earlier. It was a problem being so regular in his habits using the Thinking Room. His kids knew the perfect time and place to prank him.

Harry heard giggling coming from around the corner. He stomped over there to see six of his children looking at him, barely able to restrain their chuckling.

"Nothing more creative than that? Uncle Fred and George are coming over later and they'll be disappointed." Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes now had eight branches in three countries. Harry's friends were doing well for themselves, what with stable marriages, a set of families started, and many, many pranks coming down the pike.

His oldest girl, Beatrice, shook her head. "And Remus is coming, too, but he hasn't seen the snakes yet. So we changed it, dad. Centarion liked the snakes, but we added a color potion to it. Tonks should like that. You're more colorful than she is now." Remus and Tonks, who weren't allowed to marry, were still together. And Tonks probably would love the new hairstyle Harry was sporting.

Harry walked over to a mirror in the hall and took a look. It was extraordinary. He had hundreds of different snakes on his head and each one of them was a different color, dozens of shades of greed, red, gold, silver, and blue.

"Not a rainbow," Harry asked. He always strove to help his children with their pranking.

"We thought the gold and silver needed in there. Looked more dramatic," Beatrice said.

Then the snakes started squawking in anger so Harry hissed at them in Parseltongue to calm them down. That was when little Centarion presented himself. He loved to hear his father make the hissing sounds. Centarion screamed with laughter.

"Go wash your hands for dinner, you hoodlums," Harry said.

Harry bent down and picked up his youngest child, one of the two Umbridge and Fudge had produced during their nine marriages and subsequent divorces. Harry had adopted both of them, figuring babies needed good places to grow up, even if their birth parents were beyond despicable.

Harry was happy when his youngest, three-year-old Centarion, reached up and rubbed his forehead on his way to grabbing at the snakes on Harry's head. It made him glad his son could touch his forehead not because of what was there, but because he wanted to touch his father. Centarion loved his father and not because he knew about Harry Potter's former scar.

THE END


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